STORY OF DR. VICTOR RAMBO - SURGEON TO INDIA'S BLIND

APOSTLE

OF SIGHT

The story of Victor Rambo,
surgeon to India’s blind

Dorothy Clarke

WILSON

APOSTLE
OF SIGHT

DOROTHY CLARKE WILSON

Throughout more than fifty years of dedicated
service Dr. Rambo marched to the sound of two
trumpets — the call to medical service and the
summons to lead people to new life in Christ.

When he came to India, Dr. Rambo found that
millions lost their sight through infections
brought on by lack of sanitation, by ignorance
and by extreme poverty. He discovered that
three fourths of these blind are curable — and
he set about tackling the Herculean task of re¬
storing their sight with the vigor of a spiritual
giant, the imagination of an impossible dreamer,
and the courage of an incorrigible individualist.

He inaugurated mobile eye clinics, mobile hospi
tals, and he has personally performed more than
40,000 cataract operations — in the process
leaving a permanent imprint on the treatment
of the blind in India.

Apostle of Sight is a fascinating look at this
(Joctor minister to millions. This is a book you’ll
treasure for yourself and want to share with
neighbors — a thrilling true history which no
fiction could approach.

(continued on back flap)

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010

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APOSTLE
OF SIGHT

APOSTLE
OF SIGHT

Dorothy Clarke

WILSON

CHRISTIAN HERALD BOOKS

Chappaqua, New York 10514

Copyright © 1980 by Dorothy Clarke Wilson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or
any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing
from the publisher, CHRISTIAN HERALD BOOKS, 40 Overlook Drive, Chap-
paqua. New York 10514. Manufactured in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Wilson, Dorothy Clarke.

Apostle of sight.

1. Rambo, Victor. 2. Ophthalmologists—United
States—Biography. 3 Ophthalmologists—India—
Biography. 4. Christian life—1960- I. Title.

RE36.R35W54 617.7'0092'4 [B] 79-55678

ISBN 0-915684-54-3

Preface

T he time was a Friday afternoon, the place a large town called
Vellore in south India. The principal actors were a small group
of intensely earnest Indians and one curious American.

I was the American, and mingled with my curiosity was an
excited and awed expectancy. For I had been invited to observe a
mobile eye hospital, a modern marvel of healing that in the past
thirty years has given sight to hundreds of thousands of India s
blind.

The cars were being loaded for the trip when I arrived at Schell
Hospital, the initial unit at which Dr. Ida Scudder, for whose
biography I had come to India to gather material, started her
medical work eighty years ago. It was now the eye department of
one of the largest medical centers in all Asia, supported by nearly
forty denominational groups in at least ten different countries.

A trailer was being piled high with dozens of grass mats and
pillows and huge quantities of food, dressings, musical instru¬
ments, gospels printed in Tamil and Telegu, lanterns, oil, and
medical supplies.

The team had already begun to gather: two senior doctors, a
nursing sister, a pharmacist, an evangelist, several medical stu¬
dents, four hospital orderlies, and several servants. A cook with
his helpers and a few other trained workers had already gone
ahead to organize the camp.

Dr. Roy Ebenezer, the head of the eye hospital, greeted me
cordially. "We're going farther than usual this time," he told me,
"about seventy miles. That's why we're starting earlier."

Learning that he had already performed eighteen operations in
the hospital that morning besides superintending the treatment of
112 inpatients and 120 outpatients, I marveled at his abounding
energy. I was to marvel at it still more before the next thirty hours
were over.

As we traveled along the good tarred road, the driver expertly

5

6

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

weaving his way among bullock carts, bicycles, jutkas, laborers
with huge loads on their heads, goats, monkeys, and ambling
cattle, I learned more about the drama I was about to witness.

Eye camps had been started in Vellore ten years before, in 1947,
by an American surgeon, Dr. Victor Rambo, who had developed
the concept until it had now become an integral service here as well
as in other Indian hospitals. It carried the benefits of the eye
hospital and its operating room to the thousands of villagers who
needed its services but would have neither the means nor the
incentive to make the long journey to Vellore.

Our camp, I learned, had really begun long before this Friday
afternoon. Ten days earlier a scout had been sent out on a
motorcycle to explore a needy area within a seventy-five mile
radius of Vellore. He had sought out some influential citizen,
perhaps a village head man, who would welcome such a camp and
offer accommodation. Then had followed a "teller of good news,"
advertising through surrounding villages by printed notices and
word of mouth—occasionally by beaten tom-toms—that all with
the poo padcra (cataract) or other eye ailments could come on a
certain day to a certain place for eye examinations and, if need be,
operations.

Already I was feeling a part of the expedition. The young Indian
doctors and assistants were a jolly group, singing gaily in English
and Tamil. We might have been a crowd bound on any weekend
pleasure trip. But as we left the main road I changed my mind. No
pleasure driver would ever pick a road like this! We bumped and
swayed and lurched over miles of washboard gravel and rutted
wheeltrack so narrow that we seemed always about to slip into the
patchwork squares of brimming rice fields. I gripped the door
handle, closed my eyes, and listened to my teeth chatter.

"We're lucky today," said Dr. Ebenezer. "Our village is close to
the main road. Sometimes we have roads like this all the way."

I sensed a change of mood and tempo. The holiday spirit had
given place to one of urgency. Even the doggedly unswerving bus
seemed alive to its role in a serious mission.

Our village was an unusually large and prosperous one, with
pukka houses of whitewashed brick and tile crowding humbler
dwellings of mud and thatch. The head man, a Brahmin with
Vishnu's trident scored on his forehead in sandalwood paste and
saffron, preceded the mob of children who came to meet us. It was
in a warehouse of his rice mill and groundnut factory that the eye
camp was being held. When we drove into the mill compound, I
stared in amazement. At least three hundred people were crowded
into the small, bare rectangle.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

7

The trained workers who had arrived earlier had already organ¬
ized the camp and conducted preliminary tests. The patients with
apparent cataracts and other operable ailments had been lined up
and given chits that entitled them to further examinations. The
lines, three of them stretching clear across the courtyard, were a
horde of all ages, from great-grandfathers to babes in arms. All
were either practically blind or had serious eye disorders. They
stood as they had been squatting, many of them for long hours—
passive, patient, and warily hopeful but from bitter experience not
expectant.

Dr. Ebenezer took the time to explain, simply and briefly, why
they were there, saying that they were concerned about people
because they were Christians, believers in a God of love and in
Jesus, who had gone about the villages of another country bringing
light to sightless eyes. The young Indian doctors, a man and a
woman, took their places at small examination tables. One by one
the patients came forward and sat on a revolving stool beside one
of the doctors for their examinations. Each was seen with the
Swiss, Haag-Streit slit-lamp microscope, and his or her history
and record was completed.

There were eyes injured by leaves, straw, and flying tools; eyes
inflamed with severe conjunctivitis; and many with cataracts,
some of them in children less than a year old. The examinations
continued late into the night by the light of gasoline lanterns and
electric torches. Once Dr. Ebenezer began softly quoting the words
of an old hymn:

At even ere the sun was set,

The sick, O Lord, around thee lay,

O with what divers pains they met,

O with what joy they went away!

"He could cure them completely," said the doctor simply. "They
went away whole. Man can do only a small part, and then only
with God's help."

Sixty-seven people were found who needed operations. With
tags sewn to their garments telling the needed surgery and the eye
or eyes to be operated on, these patients were fed a hot meal of rice
gruel. Then they were settled for the night.

Late in the evening the team also gathered for supper, sitting on
grass mats around a square, and, after a Bible reading, praying that
the work of the following day be blessed. The members of the
team, including me, hungrily devoured rice and curry from plates
of big, moist, green leaves of plantain, ending the meal with

8

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

plantains and coffee. The cook, a versatile performer, was also a
skilled musician, and the strains of his violin roused a festive spirit
in the group.

"But it's not the way it was when Dr. Rambo was with us!" one of
the young doctors told me. "You should have been here then. On
evenings like this, before operating days, if he wasn't praying or
telling stories or leading us in singing, he would probably be out
there tap dancing, or, as he calls it, 'jigging.' Camps aren't the same
since he left."

"Tell me more about him," I begged. "He must be a remarkable
person to have started all this."

The young doctor shook her head, smiling. "Remarkable, yes.
But there's no way to describe him. You have to know him. He's
just—Dr. Rambo!"

I felt cheated somehow. A few months earlier and I could have at
least met this indescribable person who had created the marvel of
healing I was witnessing. Only that same year had Dr. Rambo left
Vellore to start a similar work in the Christian College and Hospital
in the north of India at Ludhiana.

In the morning, almost as soon as it was light, the team was
ready for the day's marathon. Two operating tables had been set up
side by side in the shed, strips of clean canvas shielding them from
the rusty and badly cracked corrugated ceiling. Every member of
the team had an assigned task.

As the patients were led in one by one, each wearing a clean
white cap, one group performed the prepping, shaving eyebrows
and cutting lashes, administering penicillin, and doing the nerve
blocking. Another, presiding efficiently over the hissing Primus
stoves, handled the sterilized instruments while Dr. Ebenezer and
his two assistant doctors operated. Still another applied bandages
and settled the patients on strips of matting placed in rows on the
earthen floor of the warehouse, a pillow of straw beneath each
head. With no complications it was possible to perform six opera¬
tions in an hour.

When night fell the team was still at work. Only when the last
patient had been bandaged and put to bed on his or her mat did the
concentration of furious activity slacken. There was little singing or
funmaking on the long ride home. Twelve continuous hours of
intensely skilled application at the end of a hard week's work had
exhausted the last ounce of energy.

But the camp was by no means over. It had barely begun. A cook,
an ophthalmologic pharmacist-assistant, and four orderlies were
left behind to care for the convalescents. The two simple daily
meals of rice porridge supplied by the eye camp through Church

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

9

World Service were supplemented with food prepared by relatives
and friends of the patients. An evangelist provided cheer and
inspiration with songs and stories of the gospel message, accom¬
panied by fiddles, tambourines, and drums. On alternate days one
or more doctors came from Vellore Hospital to visit the patients and
change the dressings.

I was with the team when it returned nine days later to remove
stitches, give temporary glasses, dispense medicines, and, finally,
close the camp. Watching these final steps, I was almost as wide-
eyed as the audience of curious village children crowding in the
doorways, peering through the barred windows.

I witnessed the excitement as some patients, after their bandages
were removed and they were given dark eye shades, found that
they could see dim objects. I saw others, sitting in the midst of
curious onlookers out in the courtyard, having their eyes tested for
refraction.

Then finally came the crowning moments when, blinded a little
myself by emotion, I saw glasses adjusted to pair after pair of
recently sightless eyes, saw the lips of young and old burst into
smiles, the light of joyous discovery dawn in a dozen faces. Whereas
I was blind , now I can see!

Do you wonder that all these years since, more than twenty of
them, I have wanted to write the story of Dr. Victor Rambo, the
man responsible for thousands of such mobile eye clinics that have
brought sight to hundreds of thousands of India's curable blind?

1

^ ou were born in Landour up in the hills/' his mother told

«L him, "in the house called Haycroft, on the Tehri road
toward Gangotri, far enough around the comer of the hill so we
could see the eternal snows of the Himalayas."

The boy nodded happily. "Now tell how I got my name."

"At first we couldn't decide what to call you. We wanted a name
worthy of the kind of person we hoped you would be, strong,
never afraid of doing what you knew to be right. It was our fellow
missionary Josepha Franklin who said, 'Why don't you call him
Victor?' But I've told you all this before."

"I know." It was not to hear the details of his birth that the boy
asked again to hear the story; it was to see the look in her eyes, a
sort of starry glow, whenever she spoke of his infancy or early
childhood. It gave him a warm feeling of security, knowing that he
belonged to someone who loved him and was herself so lovable. A
story he heard others tell gave even stronger assurance.

In 1895, when Victor was about a year old, he became sick.
Mother put him to bed and applied all her usual remedies—hot
peppermint water for stomachache, quinine for malarial fever, and
tiny, sweet pills of aconite from her little case of homeopathic
medicines. He did not improve. She was especially worried be¬
cause her husband, William Eagle Rambo, was away in Bombay,
attending to business connected with his orphanage for boys. She
called Major Quinn, the British civil surgeon stationed near their
mission post in Damoh, Central India. He was always a depend¬
able help in case of sickness or other emergency.

After examining the child, the doctor looked grave. He gave
other medications and recommended changes of diet. Nothing
helped. Returning, he found the boy's condition even worse.
"Something here isn't right for Victor," he said. "It could be food,
or even water. With your husband away, the servants may not have
been so careful about boiling it. This is the most dangerous season

11

12

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

for sickness, and here in this area it's difficult to get the most
nourishing food, at least in combinations a child can take. You
must take the baby somewhere else and put him on a healthier
diet, or you're going to lose him."

Kate Rambo stared at him in dismay. But—how? There was no
railroad out of Damoh. The only way open was the military road of
thirty miles used for dry-season marching by the army. And this
was the rainy season, lasting from the middle of June to the first of
October. The road was almost impassable, with few good bridges
and with causeways sure to be inundated. In fact, had it not been
for the unexpectedly heavy rains, William Eagle should have re¬
turned already.

"I'll go, of course," she decided without hesitation. "I'll take him
to Bina to our mission friends, the Ben Mitchells."

Hastily she made her plans. "You will go with me?" she asked
the children's ayah (Indian nurse).

"Achchha, Memsahib." The little brown woman gave instant
assent. "Mai tayar hun" (Good, madam, I am ready).

With calm insistence Kate answered the protests of Alfred
Aleppa, her husband's Indian helper in the orphanage, and the
other missionaries. Suppose it was a dangerous road. She had
traveled it many times and was not afraid. No, of course none of
them must go with her. All were needed there at the mission. She
would be grateful if they would care for three-year-old Philip in her
absence.

Oxen were hitched to the orphanage's bullock cart. With Victor
in her arms, she settled herself on the flat, straw-filled body cov¬
ered by blankets, and started off with a dependable driver and the
faithful ayah who, like herself, would gladly have given her own
life for one of the children.

The journey was both hazardous and frightening. Rain pelted
down. Brooks became raging streams, flowing over the causeways
and dips of the road. On the thirty miles to Saugor they had to
change oxen several times. How the driver persuaded the beasts to
cross the causeways with rapid water swirling about their loins she
would never know. More than once the floor of the low cart was
flooded. On one causeway she had to rest on her knees and hold
the baby high in her arms to keep him dry. At Saugor they reached
the railroad running through to Bina on the main line to Jhansi,
Agra, and on to Delhi. On the train she surrendered the baby into
the ayah's arms and, still in her soaked clothes, stretched on the
hard leather seat and slept for the first time in two days.

The Mitchells welcomed them with amazement and sympathetic
concern. At Mrs. Mitchell's suggestion, Victor was put on a diet of

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

13

donkey milk. Immediately he began thriving and regained his lost
weight. As was the custom, the obliging animal was brought to the
compound and milked by the front verandah, carefully watched to
see that no contaminating surplus of unboiled water was added to
her milk.

"You used to look for your foster mother's coming and gurgle
gleefully/' his mother told him when he was old enough to appre¬
ciate the story.

"But don't blame your parents," his father was heard to joke, "if
you turn out to be a donkey/'

Love. Security. They were as tangible as the high walls of the
mission bungalow with its wide stone porches sheltered by flower¬
ing bougainvilleas; as his mother's hands feeling his forehead for
fever or tucking him under his mosquito-netting tent at night; as
the folds of her long, full skirt that he clutched when a stranger
came to the door. In his early years he was seldom far from her side.

"See Memsahib, see Victor Baba," the Indian helpers would say
with amusement.

Even in her absence, as when he was put to bed, the crooning
voice of the sweeper ayah summoned her comforting presence as
she rocked him to sleep:

Sojaobe-ta, Sojaobe-ta
Go to sleep, son. Go to sleep.

Tere mata pita Tnjhe chuma
Your father and your mother

deke Pyar karte ham,

have kissed you and loved you.

One memory of his mother would remain with him all his life.
He came half awake, screaming. There were wolves in his room.
Sixty and even seventy years later he would still be able to see
them, four or five of them, snarling, teeth bared. Wolves? Why? So
far as he could remember he had never heard of them. But there
they were, symbols of every imaginable childhood fear. Then his
mother appeared in the door, and he saw the wolves run like fury
and disappear through the open door of his bathroom cubicle,
gone forever, for he never had the nightmare again. How often
through the years, intangible but no less real, he would sense the
comforting presence of the love of God!

Only once did he ever see his mother cry. Even when the cable
came telling of her mother's death, no one saw r her weep. She
disappeared into an upper room, stayed there alone for the rest of

14

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

the day, and then reappeared dry-eyed, resuming her busy life as
usual. But this once, when he was five or six, he saw her weeping.
Tears were running down her cheeks. She was holding both hands
to her face, and he could see the wetness seeping through her
fingers. He pulled at her skirt, but she paid not the slightest
attention.

"Mother!" he cried. He gasped in astonishment and dismay. It
was as if the sun had failed to rise. "What—what is it? What's the
trouble?"

She gave no sign of hearing. He felt cold with fright. Had
something terrible happened to his father, or to his brother Philip?
Was—was the world coming to an end? He spoke again, this time
his voice a mere croak. "Why—why?"

At last she lowered her hands, the tears still flowing. She
pointed to the floor, and he saw there the fragments of a gold-
rimmed, flowered plate. "Victor," she said in a broken voice, still
sobbing, "the last dish that your father and I got in our wedding
set, when we set up our home in America, is broken."

He was more frightened and bewildered than ever. Mother
crying over a dish the way he or the other children might shed tears
over a broken toy? Still crying, she went upstairs, and he waited in
an agony of uncertainty, not daring to follow, until about twenty
minutes later she came down, eyes dry and smiling. "Don't worry,
Victor. I'm all right." And his world became right again. Only
much later, learning of the first year of her marriage, was he able
fully to understand.

Kate Clough (pronounced Cluff) was Scotch. As the result of a
clan war in Scotland, some of her ancestors on the defeated side
had been forced to move to the New World, first to Canada, then to
the United States. She had been born in Ascutneyville, Vermont.
She had come from New England to teach in a school for black
children in Ohio. The minister of the church she attended there
was William Eagle Rambo, usually called Eagle. He was ten years
her senior, handsome, earnest, an eloquent preacher, and a
talented singer. She fell in love, first with his melodious voice, then
with the man himself; he was equally attracted to her. He accepted
the call of a church in Ludlow, Kentucky, and they were married.

Kate was ideally happy. Settled in a comfortable parsonage,
surrounded by new furniture and her precious wedding gifts,
confident in the assurance that she would be an acceptable minis¬
ter's wife, she looked forward to a lifetime of just such beatitude
and Christian service. Then, less than a month after her marriage,
the blow fell. A missionary from India, G. L. Wharton, burdened
with a compulsion to enlist new bearers of Christ for that country's

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

15

needy millions, came to Ludlow. After an impassioned sermon in
their church, he visited the parsonage.

"You have a work to do in India," he told Eagle bluntly.

Kate stared aghast. When her husband spoke she drew a long
breath of relief.

"But—it's impossible. I have just come to this church. They're
counting on me for an important—"

Wharton interruped impatiently. "Nothing is so important as
taking the gospel to these millions of unsaved. A dozen men could
be found to take your place here. Surely you must face the chal¬
lenge that this may be the call of God."

To Kate's dismay. Eagle did. When talk with friends and fellow
ministers and earnest prayer assured him that it was indeed God's
will, she dared not protest aloud. But inwardly, rebellion seethed.
Give up this comfortable home , all these treasures, this friendly parish for
some remote jungle shelter, infested perhaps with snakes, scorpions, and
no one knows what else? Leave family, beloved mother, and three sisters for
an alien land many weeks and stormy seas away? She suspected that
already she was pregnant. Was she to bear her child under adverse
conditions, perhaps with no doctor available and no one to attend
her but a native midwife? But she voiced none of those fears. And if
Eagle, whom she had promised to love and cherish, was assured
that it was the call of God, whom she had promised to serve, who
was she to question?

Events moved with the speed and turmoil of a whirlwind. The
new furniture was sold. The few most precious possessions that it
seemed feasible to take were carefully packed for shipment. "My
set of wedding china?" she begged. Starting to shake his head,
Eagle saw the look in her eyes and yielded. Buried in straw within
stout wooden boxes, it would arrive almost intact. They had been
married on September 1,1891, and they set sail for India on October
17, just forty-seven days later.

Now, after not quite ten years, she looked down at the flowered
fragments through a blur of tears. She had not scolded the table
helper who had broken it. '"It's all right, Babu. You couldn't help
it." Stooping, she picked up the pieces and threw them in the
waste. She might have saved a piece for remembrance, but she did
not. Life had long since become too full for regrets. And Victor
never saw her weep again.

Eagle Rambo faced the new challenge with zest. The pioneer
spirit was in his blood. Rambos had long been traveling, from
Ramboulet, France, where their name had been Rambault and
whence they had fled before the Huguenot massacres, to Sweden,
to New Jersey, to Virginia, to Indiana. From Indiana they had gone

16

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Eagle and Kate Rambo, taken in 1890. They went to India for the first time
in October 1891 f just forty-seven days after their wedding.

to Missouri during Civil War times, when the bushwhackers were
coming up from Confederate states to raid the farms for horses and
other loot, killing when they met opposition. Here Eagle had been
bom at Ten Mile, on "Billy Creek," before the family moved to
Republican City, Kansas.

He was as fearless of spiritual change as of physical. First a
staunch Methodist, he responded to the appeal of a group in the
Christian Church that declared, "Where the Bible speaks, we
speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent," and also averred,
"We are not the only Christians, we are Christians only." Submit¬
ting to immersion, he became a candidate for the ministry, com¬
pleting his education at the College of the* Bible in Lexington,
Kentucky, graduating in 1891. He went to India under the auspices
of the Foreign Christian Missionary Society of the Christian
Church and was assigned to Bilaspur, headquarters of the de¬
nomination in central India. As he wrote later, "I went with my
Bible under my arm, in the belief that the gospel is the power of
God unto salvation. It had never entered my imagination that
mission work included anything beyond the preaching of the word
in the villages and towns, with of course a small admixture of
school and colporteur work."

What a rude awakening he got! Even before he had time to adjust

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

17

himself to a new country and people and learn their language
properly, he was thrust into the direction of a boys' orphanage. He
rebelled. Waste his time in such routine work as school teaching?
But—there were the boys, and there was no one else available. At
least Bilaspur was a fair-sized city, on a railroad, and life in the
mission bungalow was secure and comfortable. Kate was sur¬
prised and delighted to find a woman doctor to see her through her
first confinement, even though Dr. Mary McGavran's hospital was
at that time just a whitewashed, brick-walled clinic.

The boys' work needed to be unified. After consultation with the
chief commissioner of the Central Provinces, his superiors decided
to move the orphanage to Damoh, where there was plenty of land
available. The Rambos moved there in January 1895, when Victor
was six months old. Although Damoh was the headquarters of a
district, with British officers in residence, it was still thirty miles
from a railroad, and all permanent buildings had yet to be con¬
structed. It seemed like a small beginning for an orphanage, only
thirteen boys, yet within months famine was stalking central and
northern India. The full, life-giving monsoon floods through
which Kate traveled to save her son's life were to be the last for
several years.

The death toll from starvation and disease was appalling. In the
next five years the population of Damoh District decreased by forty
thousand. Although the mission stations could do little to allay the
massive hunger, their orphanages were soon crowded beyond
capacity. Girls were sent to one in Deogarh, Bihar, boys to Damoh.
When starvation threatened, families were broken up. Parents,
unable to feed their children, deserted them in the forests, by the
waysides, or in the villages to beg or die, while they sought to
escape with their own lives and went—God knew where. Some
went to the great cities, like Calcutta, joining the labor force in
factories. The children were found and sent to the new orphanage
by friends or government officials. Soon news of this place where
starving children could be fed spread through the district. Some
came by themselves, crawling on hands and knees, unable to walk.
Some were brought by their parents. Clinging to his mother's
skirts, Victor watched her welcome one gaunt little newcomer after
another and heard the plea that was never refused. "We are going
to die, there will be no food. This child of ours, you will take him?"

Sometimes they came in carloads. Once, after the railroad came
through, a whole government-sponsored trainload of orphans
arrived from the north, where famine threatened a million people.
Soon there were more than three hundred fifty orphans in the
Damoh orphanage, besides the many sent to the other mission

18

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

stations. It challenged all of Eagle Rambo's wits and resources to
feed them. A shipload of corn finally came from America, but he
was able to provide no balanced diet. There was a dearth of pro-
teins. Sometimes he would go into the surrounding forests and
shoot a deer. Then all in the orphanage would have a small portion
of meat; but because there was no refrigeration, it had to be eaten at
once. In spite of all his efforts, the medical service of the British
surgeon, Major Quinn, and later the skills of Dr. Mary McGavran,
some of the boys died.

Yet out of the experience there came to Eagle Rambo a sense of
divine destiny. He had been called to India for just such a time and
challenge as this. His whole philosophy of his role as a missionary
changed abruptly. Preach to a few adults in the hope of making a
handful of Christian converts, all of them still enmeshed in the
social structure that made beasts of burden of a large part of India's
population, victims of ignorance, superstition, famine, and exploi¬
tation by unscrupulous landlords? Here was a chance to take pliant
young lives and teach them skills that would make them indepen¬
dent in this land of poverty in which the masses were the servants
of the few, introduce them to neglected occupations, and train
them in better farming methods so they could settle on govern¬
ment land and become their own masters. Tell them about the
gospel, of course, but still better, live it. If they chose to accept it,
well and good, but there would be no forcing, no making of "rice
Christians." The famine, disaster though it was, made possible an
opportunity for creating new life, an opportunity that might never
come again.

It was a new concept of missions and one that did not meet with
the approval of all of Eagle Rambo's superiors. Teach boys to be
farmers, shepherds, bee keepers, dairymen, carpenters, and
tailors? That was considered unnecessary and not in accord with
established mission procedure. It was the business of the
missionary to make converts. Then the converts must be trained to
become evangelists themselves, when they would either be sup¬
ported by the mission or find some way to earn a living. It was far
simpler, when they came to manhood or womanhood, to marry the
girls off and send the men to theological school than to spend time
and money training them to become competent workers in a secu¬
lar field. But in such an emergency one could not wait for a board to
act. Eagle Rambo made his own appeal to the church at home.

"The opportunity is now upon us," he wrote in an impassioned
article for the church paper, "and has been thrust upon us, not
invited. A complete equipment of machinery and tools is abso-

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

19

lutely necessary." He went on to outline his needs—hoes, rakes,
plows, seed drills, scythes, a churn and separator, pruning tools, a
colony of bees, a windmill, milk cattle, and at least $2,000 for cheap
buildings and other accessories. And his appeal brought results.
One churchman promised $50 toward a $150 windmill. The A. I.
Root Company of Medina, Ohio, offered a colony of bees and full
equipment for an apiary, paying the freight to Damoh. And long
before Sam Higginbotham started his famous agricultural institute
in Allahabad, north India, Eagle Rambo was carrying on a similar
experiment down in Central Provinces.

He started farms and insisted that the boys work in the fields,
growing their own food. He secured fine cows from a government
dairy to provide good milk for them, making sure that, unlike the
products of some Indian milkmen, it would remain undiluted.

"Why," asked John McGavran, one of his mission associates, of
his Indian milkman, "are you putting dirty water into the milk you
are delivering to us?"

" Ohe , no. Sahib!" protested the dairyman, "I am using only the
purest water!"

Eagle imported sheep from Australia to contribute to the boys'
food and clothing as well as their education in caring for the flock
and shearing. Having kept bees on his home farm in America, he
introduced the Italian queen bees, which thrived in their new
environment. He tamed the little Indian bees and put them to
work. He tried to domesticate the great Indian bees that built their
hives in a huge half circle in the trees around Damoh, but he was
disappointed when those big fellows refused to be tamed; they
easily could have carried twice as much nectar into his hives as
their little cousins.

There was a blacksmith's forge and a tailor's shop. Under the
tutelage of a master instructor the boys learned how to build, in
time helping to construct their own permanent quarters, a school,
a chapel, and the Rambos' bungalow. Visiting Damoh three quar¬
ters of a century later, Victor would find the house as strong and
stable as when it was built; its doors as solid and stout-hinged; its
bathroom with the same cement floor and four-inch-high
enclosure for bathing; its two-and-a-half foot masonry wall sup¬
port where the seven-gallon water jugs were placed still intact. He
would remember the cool freshness of the water that his father,
always ingenious, had strained through cotton and gauze from
one earthenware pot into another and still another so that it would
be fully aerated, cooled, safe, and without the usual flat taste of
boiled water. He would climb the stone stairs, made unusually

20

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

shallow because of his mother's increasing weakness, half expect¬
ing to hear the rustle of her long, starched petticoats as she urged
him up to bed. All about him the memories would crowd, arousing
long-dormant emotions.

Excitement, with a tingle of fear: It was there in the old dining
room under the table that he had seen the Russell's viper, at least
five feet long, one of the most dangerous of snakes, responsible for
killing more people than cobras. It was as anxious as he to get
away, but in its fright it easily could have attacked him. He had run
and told the cook and his father, and they had killed it.

Guilt: There on the shelf in the kitchen had stood the clay pot in
which the Muslim cook, Mohammed, had kept his "holy water"
that Victor and Philip had liked to mischievously pollute with their
unholy fingers—until one day they were caught, and Moham¬
med, much annoyed but with a twinkle in his eyes, had told their
father. The chastisement that followed had been nothing compared
to the mental switching that had persisted through the years.

Delight: There in the high-ceilinged living room he had hung up
his stocking by the fireplace and played with the fascinating
Christmas gifts brought by the British officers' wives to the sup¬
posedly "poor" missionary children—toys from Calcutta, elabo¬
rate trains and "crackers" to be pulled open with a snap, and
sweets that he had made to last much longer than any of the other
children, as all his life he had learned to savor happiness with a zest
far outlasting its actual experience.

Yet his earliest memories were not only of this early home. They
were of riding up the mountains in a dandi, a chair big enough to
hold two people, with two men at each end to carry it, four more
going along to spell them when they stopped to rest. Sometimes he
and Philip would get out and walk, but it was an uphill trek, 5,000
feet higher than the 2,000 at Rajpur, where they went by a two-day
train trip. Never could one forget the emergence into blessed
coolness after the 110 to 120 degree heat on the plains.

Landour, the hill station that was their haven during the hottest
season, was Victor's second world. Unlike life on the plains, where
his playmates were chiefly the Indian orphan boys, his compan¬
ions here were mostly from American, British, or Anglo-Indian
families. It was a joyous season, especially during the few weeks
when Eagle came to join them. There were parties, sorties to the
bazaars with their aromas of spice shops and curries and those
delicious sweets called jalcbes, and trips to the Childer's Castle side,
where one could see the glittering peaks of the Himalayas. But it
was on expeditions without inhibiting elders that the hills became

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

21

a paradise of freedom. With Philip and other boys he scampered
over the flat roofs of houses built close together on the mountain
slopes, jumping or climbing from one to another.

Sometimes all alone he would venture over the steep hills,
looking for the dahlias—blue, red, and yellow—growing in pro¬
fusion in the cracks of stones and clefts of the innumerable cliffs.
Clinging to the rock with his belly smack against its sloping surface
and with a bare foothold on its irregular face, he would stretch
down into the abyss to pick the flowers. Little did Mother know as
she sat smiling beside a beautiful bouquet what risks it had cost.
But personal danger would always be the least of his worries. The
dahlias were beautiful and Mother liked them, and he meant to get
them.

Running away to adventure; that was how Victor was to re¬
member his boyhood in Landour. Not that there was anything to
run from or to. It was just moving . . . along a twisting mountain
path polished by centuries of bare or sandaled feet, sometimes on
the edge of a thousand-foot cliff . . . meeting a milkman coming
along the trail, singing, with his round, wooden crocks strapped to
his back, or a man or woman toiling up the slope, back bent double
by an incredible load of rice, tins of fuel oil, or fifty kilo bags of
wheat or potatoes for the market.

"Salaam!" he would greet cheerfully. Here, far more than in the
mission compound in Damoh, he touched, smelled, breathed, and
tasted the real India.

It was in Landour when Victor was six that his sister, Dorothy
Helen, was born. Huber, born during the Rambos 7 furlough in
America in 1896, was four.

"Dear little lovely baby sister/ 7 Kate Rambo wrote Eagle on June
18, 1900. "She is handsome as a little doll, the prettiest and best
baby in Landour."

"Huber beats me," she continued. "Victor was tame for mischief
in comparison. Yesterday he spit in the ink bottle, stuffed a hand¬
kerchief into the teakettle, threw a dakshi (and spoiled it) down
the drain, ate a turnip the coolies gave him, nearly fell out of
the dressing room window, kicked Victor, and a few other things.
But he is a darling, with such red cheeks and sturdy legs."

Victor tame for mischief? Perhaps Kate had forgotten the episode
on furlough in Hiram, Ohio, when Victor was two. They had had a
very good friend named Frost, who lived next door. The two
families got water from a common well with a pump. One day
Victor had come to her and said, "Pa Frost scold me."

"Why did Pa Frost scold you? What did you do? 77

22

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

"Nothing."

"But there must have been something."

There had been. Mr. Frost had caught five rats in a multiple trap,
drowned them, and left them for further riddance. Victor had
"helped" by taking each one to the well, where he discovered a
knothole in one of the covering boards that was just large enough
to push a rat through. Fortunately Pa Frost had been both kindly
and understanding of small boys.

While the family escaped the rigors of heat on the plains, Victor
received his first formal schooling in Landour at the Philander
Smith Institute. Philip attended Woodstock School during this
time. But when the family returned to the plains the two boys, like
most missionary children, became boarders at the two schools.
Here Victor discovered that the caste system was not confined to
Indians. The upperclass students were the "elite," their privileged
status extending even to the dining room. There was good silver¬
ware, poor silverware, and some utterly disreputable, bent and
even broken. The upper grades got the good, fhe middle school
classes the passable, the small fry, including himself, the dilapi¬
dated. The "elite" were ready to pounce on any servant who dared
question their prerogatives.

Arriving early one mealtime, Victor exchanged his sorry imple¬
ments for those of an upperclassman. Presently the injured stu¬
dent, a bully, was seizing the presumably guilty servant by the ear
and demanding punishment. Victor, although unhappy, was too
much the coward to take the blame or defend his action. But even
at this early age he smarted at social injustice. He felt the same
helpless rebellion when down on the plains he saw a British soldier
snap a whip around the legs of an Indian servant "just for fun," or
when he learned of an Indian treating one of his own countrymen
unfairly.

He was a lazy student. One day when the teacher asked the class
what psalm they would like to memorize, he hastened to respond,
knowing he had memorized the twenty-third at home. Fortunately
for his morale, he made an error in number.

"Good, Victor," agreed the teacher. "We will memorize the
twenty-fourth psalm. Have it ready tomorrow." Rude shock! Dis¬
gruntled, he set himself to learn the unfamiliar verses. He did not
learn them too well, for his recitation the following day required
much prompting. The discipline was of permanent as well as
temporary benefit, however, because the psalm became a lifelong
favorite.

There was schooling on the plains as well as in the hills. Kate was
a teacher, but she was too busy helping care for the orphans to

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

23

spend hours educating her children, so they had tutors. One was a
Bengali whom they called Babu ji, an opium addict who, after
giving them an assignment, would go to sleep. Thereupon Victor,
Philip, and Huber would scamper off to play, returning before
there was danger of his waking. But they learned from him. An¬
other was an Anglo-Indian who was a hilarious joker as well as a
skilled teacher and would laugh so hard that the room would
shake. If he and Eagle Rambo, who also had a wonderful, deep
"belly laugh," had had a contest in merriment, the teacher would
have won easily.

Laughter was as indigenous to India as sorrow, and Victor grew
up with an intimate knowledge of both. His was a carefree yet
caring world. He watched his mother gather half-starved children
into her arms, saw her helpless grief as she sent their parents away
to die. If the visitors bringing their children showed signs of lep¬
rosy, Mother would push him back, although she herself gave no
evidence of fear of this or any other ailment. Once, walking along
the road some distance from the orphanage, he saw a corpse.
Starvation? Cholera? Plague? He never knew.

Death, like life, was a familiar reality. It stalked through the
orphaned children coming in undernourished, born of mothers
and fathers who had never known good nourishment. And in spite
of all his father could do, some boys died and were buried at once
in the little cemetery in the midst of the forest about two hundred
yards from the orphanage. Death, even its crudest reality, was
accepted in stride. Once after such a burial, Victor and some
companions were wandering in the forest and went past the ceme¬
tery. They saw that hyenas had made a forty-five degree, sloping
passage into the deep grave, directly into the middle of the dead
boy's body containing the inner organs they coveted. They stared
in silence, marveling at the skill of the predators. What engineers!
They had dug not in the soft earth with which the grave had been
refilled, and which might have trapped them by falling in on them;
but, starting four or five feet outside in the hard soil, they had
made this oblique passage straight to their desired goal and
emerged safely. Victor felt no particular horror. It was just one of
the facts of life that must be faced.

"I had such a boyhood," he was to remember, "as no one else
could dream of."

His home was not only the bara bangalo (big bungalow) but the
whole mission compound, his loving family all its workers. There
was Alfred Aleppa, his father's capable assistant who was gracious
and kindly, and his wife, Tabitha, who helped Kate care for the
orphans' food and clothes. There were the Franklin sisters, who

24

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

taught the orphanage boys. A pity he could not have learned Hindi
from them for, although he was bilingual from babyhood, his
Hindi, gleaned from servants and playmates, was of the Sais (horse
caretakers) variety, rough, ungrammatical, not profane but
abounding in the abuse language known as gali, a word derived
from the name of a snouted animal resembling the American pig.
There were the ayah, the children's nurse who loved them like her
own offspring, and Mohammed, who slipped them sweets and
patiently endured their pranks. Only once did Victor ever know a
servant to treat him unkindly, and he was so surprised that he
simply ran away.

There were playmates galore on the compound, but as on the
hills he managed to run away by himself to adventure
— and sometimes found too much of it. One day he was running
from one bungalow to another along a familiar path between two
walls of tall grass with the baers (wild plum thorn bushes) and other
scrub trees on each side. Suddenly he saw lying in the path ahead
what looked like a big log. But he was cautious. It was a long body
perhaps eight inches in diameter, absolutely motionless. Fortu¬
nately he knew what it was, a python on shikar (hunting). There it
lay, waiting—for what? a wild pig? a jackal? a dog? or a small boy?
He knew about pythons. They do not poison their victims. They
squeeze them. Any jackal or boy touching that body would have
been wound around with the rapidity of a springing rat trap and
crushed to death, ready to be swallowed. There was one that lived
in a big cactus clump on the edge of the compound, impossible to
find, and every so often one of the pigs would stray in and become
its prey. Victor was not afraid. Backing up about twenty feet, he ran
like the wind, cleared the menace by at least a foot, and without
stopping to look back sailed along home, arriving breathless and
speechless beside his mother.

No day was devoid of excitement, whether fighting rats in the
woodpile of the carpenter shop, chasing bats—he found one once
in the toe of his stocking—or riding in front of his father on the
new bicycle. It was the first one ever brought into Central Province,
forerunner of the thousands that would soon add confusion to the
welter of bullock bandies, hand carts, rickshaws, camels, hawkers,
pedestrians, and cows clogging every main street of India. When
they rode through the bazaar on this "iron horse," there was
always a throng of children following and adults gawking at the
curiosity, just as thrilling was the coming of the first phonograph
when the British troops marched into Damoh from Jabalpur. There
were ear phones to hear it with and round tubes with a needle.

Even more exciting was festival time, perhaps Christmas, when

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

25

the family visited the district commissioner and the boys were
given rides on an elephant. Once the elephant had been given an
errand to the mission compound through the scrub jungle.

"Would you like to go along?" the mahout asked Victor.

Would he! Thinking his parents would consent, he did not tell
them. Hoisted into the big decorated box on the elephant's back,
he sat on the floor and held on to the edge for dear life. The mahout
straddled the neck in front of him, sitting as straight as if he were
taking the viceroy for a ride. It was exhilarating. Victor felt like a
maharajah. But his parents had not been told of his absence; there
was no telephone communication; and he was not there when the
family started home. One of those rare enforcements of physical
discipline followed, the application of the little willow switch,
harmless but effective, that his father used on both the orphans
and his own children. In either case it was a thorough and stinging
application, but it was administered always in love. Years later
Samaru, one of the orphanage boys, was to acknowledge this:
"Your father used to punish us with tears in his eyes, crying while
he was laying on the switch."

One of the misdemeanors that grieved Eagle most concerned his
thriving guava orchard. The Indian guava, big as an apple, sweet
and succulent when fully ripe and good eating for boys even when
green, supplied vitamins and other nourishment that he found
difficult to secure for his weakened orphans. The trees, common to
the plains, had been there on his arrival, but he had carefully
cultivated them with the boys' help and, to protect them from
marauders animal and human, had enclosed them within a
wooden fence. But the more mischievous boys would climb the
fence at night, sneak into the orchard, and eat the fruit before it was
ripe. Stealing? He did not call it that. They would get the fruit
eventually anyway, but it was disappointing both that they de¬
prived themselves and others of the large, nourishing, ripe fruit
and that they betrayed his trust in their obedience. Then one time
after a bout of sickness, he went up to the hills for a longer vacation
than usual, leaving the orphanage in the hands of a fellow
missionary and Alfred Aleppa. Learning of the petty thievery of
the green fruit, the missionary was shocked.

"This orchard is provoking stealing in the boys!" he protested.
"It must stop."

Aleppa tried to explain. Rambo Sahib depended on the fruit to
supply the nourishment the boys needed. It was hard getting
enough fruits and vegetables in this time of famine. He frowned on
the boys' pranks, of course, and punished the culprits when they
were discovered. But it was not really stealing. The boys had

26

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

helped to cultivate the guavas. The Sahib tried to teach them that
the farm belonged to all of them together.

The missionary was unconvinced. To Aleppa's horror he took an
axe, went into the orchard, and chopped down every one of the
trees. When Eagle Rambo returned he found raw stumps. He was
more saddened than angry. Did the man think that taking away
food from their poor, weak bodies was going to change the boys'
hearts? No trees ever grew there again. Visiting the place seventy
years later, Victor would find nothing but red gravel, unfit even for
cactus growth.

Providing nourishing food for his charges was for Eagle Rambo a
constant struggle. Years ahead of his time he sensed the necessity
for a balanced diet, especially a sufficiency of protein for boys who
had known such a lack of it. He had introduced dairying, import¬
ing cows from England. He had given contracts for milk to local
cowherds and dairymen. The milk and buttermilk were given
chiefly to the weaker children, and he always felt regret that most
of the boys did not have sufficient milk, and many could have none
at all.

To supplement their diet, he often went into the surrounding
forests to hunt. There was plenty of game: the noble elk called
sambar; chital, a spotted deer; the small chinkara, the barking deer;
and many wild pigs. Heads and horns of elk he had killed hung in
hall and living room along with the graceful antlers of deer, the
horns of a black buck, and a homely nil guy (blue bull). For him it
was not a sport. But what was earnest labor for their father was
hilarious excitement for the sons.

"Come on, Victor," he said one day. "I am going to the talao in the
forest to see if I can get a suar for us and the boys to eat." The talao
was a pond, the suar a wild pig. Victor obeyed with alacrity.

Near the pond he sneaked behind his father as he cautiously
made his way through the shrubbery of the thick bamboo entirely
surrounding the water. They reached a position from which they
could see the other side. After a few minutes the two-foot em¬
bankment on the opposite side was invaded by what seemed a
hundred wild pigs of every size and age. Eagle aimed and shot,
and within five seconds there was not a pig to be seen, only the
sound of scufflings in rapid retreat. A miss. At the sound of the
shot, up from the pond rose a flock of red-wattled plover, giving
their strange cry that sounded like 'Diddididid you do it? Did-
dididid you do it?" Exasperated, Eagle sent an unaimed shot at the
annoying inquisitors, but that missed, too. He was less troubled by
his missed shot than by the fact that 350 boys did not have a
nourishing taste of pork, nor did the Rambos and their servants

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

27

that evening. Of course the Muslim cook would not eat pork, but
he did not hesitate to cook it for the family. Usually on a shikar Eagle
was an excellent shot. Perhaps the excitement of the boy at his side
had not helped his aim.

But he was far more distressed when a panther entered the pen
no more than fifty feet from the bungalow and killed three of his
best sheep. Imported from Australia, they were a source not only
of food but of the wool that furnished the boys work in spinning,
weaving, and making clothes in the tailor shop. A machan was
erected, an elevated platform on four legs on which a man could sit
and make sounds to drive away encroachers. To Victor's joy his
father let him go up on the machan , where there was a view of the
dead sheep in the pen below. "There," he pointed, "is the place
where I expect the panther to come tonight to eat his kill." Victor
could not go with his father that night, but he watched the prepa¬
rations. A kerosene bicycle lamp was fitted with a black cover, a
hole cut through to let out a narrow beam. Victor tried to keep
awake, listening for a shot, but was sound asleep when it came.

"Did you get it?" he asked eagerly the next morning.

Father's face looked fittingly chagrined. The panther had come
and jumped over the wall. Eagle had set his sights and fired, in his
eagerness probably too soon. That morning they had found the
dead sheep the panther had taken with a bullet in it. There was no
smiling then, but later Eagle was to endure much ribbing for
"killing a dead sheep."

Sometimes the jungle penetrated the compound with even more
savage excitement. Once a tiger that had been shot was brought to
the bungalow, suspended by its tied front and hind legs to a pole
carried by six men. Another time a living tiger was driven to the
front of the bungalow in a crude country trap, its bars made of
sawn timber tied partly with iron and partly with heavy woven
vines, strong as manila ropes. Eagle summoned all the orphan
boys as well as his own to see these curiosities. He wanted them to
have every experience possible.

The Bible was an integral part of his life, and he was taught to
respect and revere the strength that Christianity gave his parents.
He learned many parts of Scripture besides that troublesome
twenty-fourth psalm, especially the basic teachings of Jesus, and
they became the sinews of his growing character.

Then slowly came uncertainty and change. Circumstances were
making necessary the Rambos' return to America. Kate had not
been well since the birth of Dorothy Helen. Then she was struck
with a severe sickness. For a long time — it seemed like years to her
children—she was hospitalized in Mussoorie, close to Landour,

28

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

where she was cared for by devoted Anglo-Indian nurses. Return¬
ing to the plains, she was confined to her bed for months. Eagle
also had never completely recovered from a severe attack of
typhoid fever, the second since coming to India.

But their physical weakness was only one of Eagle's worries as
he prepared to go on furlough. What would happen to his orphan¬
age? He could trust Alfred Aleppa to carry on the work they had
begun together—the farm, the animal husbandry, and the indus¬
trial training. Alfred was a competent teacher, a counselor, an
arbitrator, a loving Christian example, and a stern but kind disci¬
plinarian. But he would be second in command, unable to oppose
higher authority. Another missionary would be sent to fill Eagle's
place in his absence. Many members of the mission board still
frowned on his concept of the missionary's role. He believed that
strong bodies, practical skills that could make a man independent,
belief m the dignity of labor, and discipline in the use of hands and
eyes as well as brains were as fundamental to the development of
Christian character as training for preaching and evangelism.
Many of his boys had consecrated their lives to Christian service,
but not because they had been forced or unduly urged. He could
see them going out, witnessing to their faith, not necessarily as
preachers but as farmers, carpenters, tailors, and teachers; proud,
independent, unlike so many converts who in their poverty had to
be subsidized by foreign money.

In spite of his misgivings, he anticipated the coming furlough.
He could appeal to Christians in America, show them the hun¬
dreds of pictures he had taken with his big box camera, inspire
them with his vision. Yes, and he would come back with a scien¬
tifically trained agriculturist, an expert in manual training, and—
daring hope!—at least twenty thousand dollars to buy land and
equipment to carry out experiments that needed to be made before
determining just what was the best procedure to follow in bringing
his vision to fulfillment.

The family started for America in the spring of 1904, with Kate
traveling on a stretcher. In the hotel in Bombay, while waiting for
their ship, Philip had an accident. The chimney of the lamp in the
bathroom fell on his thigh and burned him severely. It was not his
first mishap. Once, climbing a high tree near the school in Land-
our, he had fallen on the rocks below and remained unconscious
for three days. The fall left him with occasional epileptic seizures
that would affect him throughout his life. Now as then, he made no
complaint about the discomfort that kept him limping on the ship
all the way to America.

Because their father was caring for their mother most of the time

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

29

down in her cabin, the children were free to roam the whole big,
wonderful ship as they pleased, and they took full advantage of the
freedom. There was no ayah or other servant to inhibit their ac¬
tivities, no threat of a willow switch to deter from mischief. The
captain and crew were lenient. Even four-year-old Dorothy Helen
was a willing participant in all their escapades.

"Never," the captain was heard to confess later, "in all my
experience were I and my crew so glad to get into port and unload
such lovable and problem children as we had on that trip!

Each day brought new and thrilling adventure. They watched
the jugglers and hawkers in their little boats at Aden and Port Said.
In the Bay of Biscay they experienced their first snow. Snowballing
each other on deck, they shouted with glee. Just feeling the soft,
cold stuff in their hands was a thrill. Going through the Red Sea
and the Mediterranean, they would hang over the deck rail and
watch the playing porpoises. There were other playmates. One
was a little girl who was not allowed to play with any child whose
hands were soiled, and without Kate's supervision the young
Rambos failed to qualify. After leaving Bombay her mother offered
a prize to the child whose hands remained the cleanest all the way
to Liverpool. Victor determined to win it. He scrubbed with the
washrag so hard and continually that his usually grimy paws
remained a constant parboiled pink. He won the prize, a box of
delicious candy that he shared with everybody on board, as he
would have done in Damoh.

As the ship docked in Liverpool, there on the pier was a pile of at
least a thousand and ten tons of peanuts just unloaded from a ship
arriving from West Africa. The boys climbed the peanut mountain
and threw nuts at each other. No one objected or suggested that
there was danger of a child's sinking into the vast, slippery mass
and vanishing. Never would they forget the one time in their lives
when they had enjoyed more peanuts than they could possibly eat.
It was Victor's only memory of England.

Far different was his sole recollection of the Atlantic passage.
The boys were allowed to go to the front of the ship, where they
could watch the prow driving majestically into the waves. Victor
loved to go there at sunset. One evening the sun shot forth spokes
of red light like a wheel, each spoke equal to the others in width
and intensity, their crimson alternating with the deep blue of the
sea. The water was calm, and the ship seemed to be going directly
into the wheel's hub. He watched spellbound, all his nine-year-old
being stretching to encompass this effusion of beauty, this burst of
the heavens telling the glory of God. Ship and ocean seemed
suspended in space. He stood and watched the glow die, further

30

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

and further, until it was gone in the bit of cloud on the horizon. But
it would never be gone from memory. A half century later, trying
vainly to put the experience into words, his pulses would quicken
and his nerves would tingle at the recollection. Thanks to devout
parents and teachers, he had always accepted God as a reality and
been more or less conscious of His presence. Now for the first time
in his life he felt as if he had actually met Him face to face in His
creation.

A merica seemed a strange, drab, but intensely exciting country.

l It was not like India, with its slow motion, flamboyant
colors, soft speech, and gentle kindliness. Here in New York skies
were dull, pale even in the sunshine. The unsmiling men who
moved their baggage through customs seemed in a terrible hurry,
and their voices sounded clipped and harsh. The horses that drew
their carriage from ship dock to railroad station, hoofs clicking
sharply on the cobblestones, were noisy counterparts to patient
oxen plodding on hard earth or through golden dust. Victor re¬
garded his new world with surprise, mild distaste, and avid curios-
ity.

"This is home, darlings," Kate told the children eagerly. "This is
your country where you really belong." Was it the ocean voyage,
with Father's constant care, or the sight of this strange land she
called home that had restored her to almost normal health, brought
the old sparkle to her eyes? No matter what, with Mother herself
again, Victor's life was secure and good.

Still, Victor was confused. The bara bangalo was "home," the
world of jungles, mountains, hungry children, heat, dust, and
color. Of course he had known that he was not Indian but Ameri¬
can, yet until now the word had not possessed reality. The first
furlough, when he was two, might never have been. He felt like
two people, one in conflict with the other, and vaguely he sensed
that always he would have these two identities, would always be
striving to fuse the two into one.

The railroad station was vast and bustling. While Eagle went to
inquire about their train, Kate and the children huddled in a close
knot around the baggage, a tiny island in a swirling stream of
hustling bodies. Eagle returned full of urgency. The train was
already waiting. They must hurry. A porter was found. Victor
regarded with interest this American version of a coolie, transport¬
ing a heavy load on a little pushcart instead of piled high on his

31

32

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

head. The train, too, was different from those in India, no com¬
partments like little rooms but long cars with seats one behind the
other. They found three seats together, enough room for six
people. Suddenly Eagle stiffened; he counted only five Rambos.
"Where's Philip?" he said. Somewhere in transit, Philip, prone to
misfortune it seemed, had got himself lost.

'Til go back," said Eagle tersely. "No," he said to Kate as she,
white-faced, prepared to follow. "I'll find him. If we don't get here
in time, go ahead. We'll come on the next train."

Minutes were like hours. They seemed to Victor as long as the
three days when he had hovered around his unconscious brother
after his fall from the tree. Kate tried to smile. "It's all right, dear.
Father will find him."

A whistle screamed. A shrill voice shouted. The car jolted, then
the wheels began to move. And just as the train was pulling out of
the station, there was Father coming through the door, Philip in
tow. Somehow he had managed to give the alarm. The police had
swung into action. Father, Victor decided, could always be trusted
to make things right, like God. But no! He would not want to be
compared with God. When Victor had written him a letter from
school beginning, "Dear Father," Eagle had objected because he
began the word with a capital letter. "There is only one Father.
God. Always use a small letter when you write of me."

Perhaps it was the presence of his father that made that first
summer in America so idyllic. The first part was spent in New
Hampshire on a farm with Aunt Nell Barton, Kate's sister, and her
husband. For the first time in their lives the Rambo children knew
the blessings of abundance. Three times a day they sat down to a
table loaded with enough nourishment to feed as many orphans
for a week. Uncle Barton's cows, fattened by adequate grain and
pasturage, were as superior to their father's as were his to some of
the bony, mangy wrecks of cattle that roamed the Indian streets.
One day's brimming pails of milk would have supplied a generous
cup to all the orphans. There was meat every day, not just an
occasional morsel from a lucky hunting trip. Blessings in his two
worlds, Victor was discovering, were deplorably unequal.

But India and the orphans were far away, and he adjusted to the
affluent life with joy and abandon. Even farm chores were fun. He
liked especially to find and bring in the eggs. One day, making the
rounds without the usual basket, he stored them all in his
pockets—coat, pants, even shirt. Exuberant over his booty, he
entered the kitchen to be greeted by Aunt Nell's gracious smile of
thanks, only to trip over a rug and fall flat to the tune of shattering
shells and much laughter. Chagrined and embarrassed, he had

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

33

to be stripped to the skin and bathed before returning to play.

"Don't worry," Aunt Nell comforted. "We all make messes some
time or other."

It was her understanding of a small boy's awkwardness that sent
him away assured and happy and also taught him that humiliation
could best be taken with good humor. It was his first of many
lessons in learning to laugh at himself. Nonetheless he felt guilty.
Carelessness might not be a sin, but it could hurt things and
people. Suppose it had happened in India. The eggs he wasted
would have provided much-needed strength for a dozen orphans.

The family's next stop, Lake Sunapee, also in New Hampshire,
brought further adventure. They visited another of Kate's sisters.
Aunt Lucy Lewin. Here again Father's companionship was the
bonus that made hiking, swimming, and fishing a treasure store of
memories, especially fishing. Even catching an eel on a grasshop¬
per lure, a dubious achievement in the opinion of native fisher¬
men, was for Victor a memorable feat. But the visit was darkened
by tragedy. Aunt Lucy's son Kurt had recently died. A student in
medical school in Baltimore, he had played safetyman on the
football team. The only defense in the way of an opponent on his
way to a touchdown, he had been stricken with heart failure. The
family's grief was not permitted to mar the children's enjoyment.
Assured that Cousin Kurt was in heaven, they played angels,
visited him there, and, with his sisters Ruth and Marguerite,
shared happily in his celestial bliss. As in India, death seemed a
natural and necessary aspect of God's creation, to be accepted as
happily as life.

With the coming of autumn, vacation ended. Eagle moved his
family to Des Moines, Iowa, where the children could be put in
school and he could visit the Christian churches in the area, telling
the story of his making boys into men. This was a center of the
denomination, and the children were enrolled in a school not far
from Drake University, a pioneer college of the Christian church.
The months there were filled to the brim with new experiences that
were joyous, life-changing, near tragic, and, at least one, ridicu¬
lously comic.

The humorous incident happened on Halloween. Sanitary
facilities were fully as crude as in India, and there was no sweeper
to assume the duties of final disposal. In the night, roaming
mischief-makers overturned the small outhouse at the rear of the
Rambos' temporary home, leaving an open pit to entrap any small
boy who felt the need of relief before dawn. Drugged with sleep
though he was, Victor apprehended the danger just in time and
was saved the indignity of an unsavory plunge.

34

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

There was again the marvel of snow, with the thrill of coasting
down the long hill near the campus, the older boys obligingly
ready to put a wide-eyed ten-year-old on their bobsleds, giving
him a degree of joy surpassing even his triumphant ride on the
elephant. One day, coasting in fresh snow down the lawn to the
sidewalk, perhaps eight feet, he looked back to see a fifty-cent
piece sticking up in his tracks, an unheard-of fortune for a small
boy. As with sweets, he made it last and last. But he acquired
capital by hard labor as well as chance discovery, getting a job
helping neighbors wash their clothes, turning the cranks of
wringers and scrubbing garments on the corrugated metal
washboards, a task earning him ten cents an hour in addition to a
lame elbow and scraped knuckles.

Once that year he almost met death. With companions he went
swimming in the Des Moines River, at a deep place without much
beach but with a lifeguard on duty at certain hours. He could not
swim much but, not to be outdone, he followed his companions to
a barge anchored in mid-stream, hauling himself along a rope
buoyed by little, sealed, empty barrels so that it was near the
surface. Arriving at the barge, he watched some of the boys jump
into the water, grasping the circling rope as they came to the
surface.

"Come on," they urged. "It's fun."

It was. Jumping into the water feet first, he would paw his way
up with delight and catch the rope. Time after time he jumped,
finding to his joy that he could swim a few strokes. Getting tired,
he started to shore along the rope, hand over hand. Surely, he
thought when only a few yards remained, he could swim the rest
of the way. He let go of the rope, only to sink. Sputtering up, he
sank again, and there was no more coming up. Fortunately the
lifeguard had seen his predicament. The next thing Victor knew he
was lying on the bank, gasping, retching, strong hands pushing
rhythmically on his back. Emptied, still dazed, he managed to sit
up, smiling but unable to speak. After the descent into blackness
the sun was blinding. "Th-thank you — thank you," he was able to
mouth at last.

It was a foretaste of the future. Years later, hearing the words,
"Thank you, thank you," a thousand and more times, he would
remember this incident and understand better the gratitude of one
delivered out of darkness into light.

Life had become suddenly a precious thing. And in the Univer¬
sity Christian Church the family attended, as well as in the home,
the challenge of its dedication was being constantly presented.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

35

Brother Charles Medbury was an earnest and eloquent preacher.
“Brother/' Victor's father always called him, not ''Reverend.'' For,
''Are not all Christians to be 'reverend,"' Eagle Rambo maintained,
''to love God and His Son and be reverent?''

From his birth Victor had been nurtured in the conviction that
faith, to become vital, must be acknowledged. Now, hearing Bro¬
ther Medbury give the invitation to follow Christ, he could no
longer resist. As his parents stood singing the invitational hymn
with the congregation, he slipped past them and went forward.
Perhaps there was some doubt that a boy of eleven could under¬
stand the full implication of such a commitment. The minister
wanted to be sure.

“Do you believe," he asked, “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and your Savior?"

“I do," replied Victor, looking him straight in the eye.

His baptism by immersion soon followed, after the custom of
Disciples of Christ churches.

His commitment was not only for some distant future. It was
here and now, and it applied to life's smallest details. The short cut
to the swimming hole led through a garden. Sometimes as he
passed through, Victor had helped himself to a tomato or two. Not
any more. For years he would recall the theft and his prayer for
forgiveness.

Meanwhile Eagle was earnestly seeking support for his work,
telling the story of his orphanage, showing the pictures he had
taken with his big bellows camera equipped with large glass plates.
There were views of Damoh before the railroad had come; before
and after shots of the boys as they arrived, skeleton thin, then fat¬
tened and healthy; glimpses of the way character was being de¬
veloped in field and dairy, carpenter and tailor shops. He was
away much of the time, sometimes on long trips, and would come
home dead weary, often more from frustration than from fatigue.
Never had his family seen him so disheartened—yes, angry—as
when he returned from a trip on which he had found after one
meeting that someone had taken both of his precious picture
albums. Advertisements in church magazines brought no results.

The year of furlough was all too short. Eagle had not found a
scientifically trained agriculturist to take back to India or an expert
in manual training, and he suspected the mission board would not
have sent them if he had. He was far from raising the twenty
thousand dollars to buy more land and equipment to help fulfill his
dream. But the year moved inexorably, and the time came to
return. Then for Victor and Philip the blow fell.

36

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

"You mean—we're not going back with you? We—have to stay
here?"

Eagle and Kate looked even more stricken than the boys.

"We believe it's for your own good, darlings." It took all Kate's
iron will to keep the tears back. "The schools here are all so much
better."

"The time will pass quickly, sons." (Five years? Seven? Longer?)
"And even in India you'd be away from us most of the year."

"We—We'll miss you far more than you'll miss us." (Incredible
understatement!)

They were words, empty platitudes, half truths hiding an ache
that even the assurance of serving God could not ease. Kate suf¬
fered most during the final weeks. Had she thought it sacrifice to
leave her new home, her precious possessions, for a strange coun¬
try, an uncertain future? She had not known the meaning of the
word. Smiling, dry-eyed, she mended the boys' clothes; tucked
little surprises and notes in the pockets; gave them endless admo¬
nitions about brushing teeth, keeping warm, reading their Bibles,
and praying; and talked brightly about the good time ahead for
them. Not until the train bearing them away pulled out of the
station did she give way to outward expression of grief. Only once,
Victor remembered, had he ever seen her cry, over a piece of
broken china. He did not see her cry now.

But Eagle and Kate were not to return to India after all. Just
before they made ready to sail. Eagle was told by the mission board
that he was not to be appointed to Damoh again but instead would
be sent to some other station. The news was devastating. He knew
that it meant the end of all his plans and dreams. The mission
board had always looked askance at the farm and industrial school.
His transfer meant inevitably that the work would be discon¬
tinued. Now he learned also that even the orphanage would be
closed. Because the famine had passed, leaving only the usual
excesses of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition, the board thought
that there was no need for it to continue. The present occupants
would be well cared for, he was assured. They would be sent to
school, given religious training, and surely some of them would
become useful servants of the church. Brother Rambo must under¬
stand that the orphanage as he had conceived it had been but a
temporary expedient. He did understand, perfectly. There would
be no training in practical skills to make them independent of
charity or foreign subsidy. No matter what their talents and inter¬
ests, they would be squeezed into one mold—preacher,
evangelist—or, if they refused, they would be shunted off into a

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

37

society in which only superior skill in some craft or profession
could bring release from dire poverty.

“We won't go back," he told Kate in a decision as sudden and
final as the impulse that had taken them to India just forty-seven
days after their marriage. "I don't think I could bear to see it all lost
and be unable to lift a finger. We—we'll stay here and take a
church. At least—" His voice broke, unable to continue. At least,
he had been about to add, he would be far enough away so that he
need not actually witness the disintegration of his dreams.

Kate was as grieved as he, yet the grief was tempered with relief.
"At least," she finished for him, "we will be nearer to care for
Philip if he needs us." For in spite of his fine qualities of mind and
disposition, the health of their oldest son had long been a concern
to both of them. Whether his fall from the tree had been the cause
or the result of the tendency to epileptic seizures, he had given
them much occasion for worry through the years.

So it was decided. Eagle accepted the call to pastor a church in
Alma, Nebraska. The two boys would be left to finish a year in
school in Harriman, Tennessee, and then they would join the
family. But for Eagle Rambo it was like having a vital member of his
body cut off.

Forty years later his son Victor would see his father's philosophy
vindicated in at least one instance. A man about his own age came
to him in India.

"Remember me? I was in the orphanage at Damoh. I'd like to tell
you something."

Learning the man's name, Victor remembered him well. "What
do you want to tell me?"

"Your father," the man said, "wanted me to choose a profession.
He asked me what I wanted to do, and I told him I wanted
tailoring. So he opened up a place for me in the tailoring class. I
was happy and settled. Then suddenly I was called into the mis¬
sion office and told that I was to learn preaching. I tried to beg off. I
knew I was no good at leading meetings or being more than a
worshiper. I belonged to Jesus as a tailor. But, Sahib, I had to go to
the theological school, and now forty years have passed, and I
have had a job all the time as an 'evangelist.' I have brought only
one person to Jesus Christ in all these years, and I have always
wanted to be a tailor. If only your father had come back to Damoh!"

If only he had come back to India! Victor amended silently.

He could understand why his father had acted as he did. He had
often been tempted to sever connection with mission and hospital
boards himself—might have if, like his father, all he had worked

38

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

for had been in jeopardy. Yet looking back, Victor concluded that
Eagle's decision to refuse another appointment had been a mis¬
take. Although he had become a successful and devoted minister
in many churches, until he died his heart had been in India. He had
agonized over the closing not only of his orphanage but also of the
young girls' work in Deogarh and Mahoba. By conforming with
mission policy, no matter what the work assigned, he could at least
have maintained contact with some of the orphans he had saved
from starvation, found other young persons to help toward useful
maturity, and perhaps with patient prodding even broadened the
vision of his superiors. But William Eagle Rambo, like his son, was
neither patient nor a conformist.

The boys had been met at the station in Harriman, Tennessee,
and taken to an institution called American University, where they
were assigned to the grade school division. Philip was thirteen,
Victor eleven. They cried themselves to sleep the first night but
with the resilience of boyhood settled fairly happily into the new
routine, for the most part compliant with the school's motto,
"Every day's lesson mastered every day."

On the weekly holiday, Monday, because the town children had
Saturday off, the boys were allowed an incredible degree of free¬
dom, and Victor took full advantage of this new opportunity to
"run away to adventure." He did not go alone. The boys were
turned loose in groups, given a bag of sandwiches, fruit, and a
sweet, and permitted to go where fancy led. The adventure would
begin with a bargaining session for sandwiches. "Ham for a jam!"
"Jam for a ham!" "Cheese for a jam!" and so on. Off they went into
the enchanting country of the Emery River Valley, with hills and
rills, woods and farms, and cliffs high enough to frighten, hon¬
eycombed with caves.

Victor belonged to a group whose members called themselves
the "Dare Devil Den," and some of their exploits lived up to the
name. They courted thrill and danger. Going to Harriman Junc¬
tion, where the Nashville Express roared through a tunnel, they
would cling to its sides when the train passed, pinned precariously
in the swirling currents of air. There was a cave near the tunnel, its
entrance descending almost vertically about eight feet into the
rock. Scrambling down, they would eat their lunches in this
sanctum. Once as they were emerging they heard a heavy thud
behind and were enveloped in a cloud of powdered soil. Looking
back, they saw that an enormous part of the roof had fallen just
where they had been sitting. Ashen-faced and silent, they made
straight for the school with none of the usual detours.

But the experience was no deterrent, and Victor was in the

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

39

forefront, if not the instigator, of such escapades. One of the boys'
favorite sports was riding the cowcatcher of the shunting engine
from Harriman Junction to Harriman. Of course this was illegal,
and, reports of the misdemeanor having reached the authorities, a
detachment of grim policemen was waiting one Monday evening
as they returned. Victor saw them first, jumped off the moving
train, sprinted away among trees and boulders, and then mean¬
dered about until the coast seemed clear, when he sneaked quietly
into the dormitory and shut himself in his room. He knew better
than to thank God for his escape. His reaction was just a fervent
"Gee whiz!"

"How did you get away?" demanded his companions, all of
whom had been taken to the police station, sternly cautioned, and
thoroughly frightened.

"Easy," he replied with more apology than triumph. "I just saw
trouble coming, jumped, and flew."

Physical agility was also the inspiration of an unusual talent
acquired during the year at Harriman. Victor was especially in¬
trigued by the minstrel shows that were put on in the community
but that he could not attend by normal methods because he had no
money to purchase a ticket. The only way he could gain entrance
was by maneuvering around a big curtain five minutes after the
show started and being hauled in by some kindly confederate. He
was enchanted by the rhythmic motions of the dancers, and back
in the dormitory he tried to imitate the steps. To his delight and that
of his schoolmates, he found that he had a natural talent for tap
dancing, or, as he called it, jigging. Toes and heels worked together
like clockwork. On a bare floor or table, with a pair of shoes that
could respond to a striking beat, he could perform almost like a
professional. Coupled with an innate instinct for showmanship, it
was to become a lifetime source of enjoyment for himself and his
friends.

Had their sons' letters been as descriptive of extracurricular
activities as of studies. Eagle and Kate might well have questioned
their decision to exchange India's hazards for the benefits of
superior education. The separation was hard enough to bear
without the burden of additional worry.

To Kate the new home in America seemed like a return to Eden,
but not for its security and comfort, and certainly not for the
wedding presents, minus china, that had waited in her sisters' care
for more than a dozen years. After feeding and clothing homeless
and starving orphans, such things were unimportant. But the new
home meant that after that first year the family was once more
together.

40

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Victor finished his year in Harriman successfully except for
deficiencies in grammar and spelling, which would always be
difficult for him, and both boys entered school in Alma. Spelling
continued to haunt him, for in the spelling bees that ran through
the year he would be constantly moving up, then plummeting to
the bottom. "This Friday," he would vow, "Tm going to really get
to the top of the line." Then down he would go on some word,
simple or complicated, it did not matter which. Only on the last
day of school did he manage to reach the head.

Mathematics, too, was not his best subject. As treasurer of the
Sunday school in Alma, his accounts never balanced, and his
father made up the $1.70 book deficit when the office was turned
over to someone else. It was a profitable experience, for it taught
him never to overspend, an invaluable policy for future years
when he would be responsible for a constantly growing work with
limited funds. "No money, no spending" became his motto. Yet
always there somehow would be the wherewithal for every work¬
er's salary.

Instead of "running away to adventure" now, he simply ran.
Seeing his lanky figure loping along the streets in the manner that
in the far future would be called "jogging," the townspeople stared
in amazement. "We really thought it rather strange," a woman
friend confessed later, "and wondered why you were running.
Now we know it was to keep fit." She was only partly right. He ran
from sheer exuberance, excess of energy, and joy of living.

But there was a long period when he did no running, for while in
Alma he became, literally, like John Wesley before him, a "brand
plucked from the burning." It happened on the Fourth of July,
1907. The boys had a cardboard carton of white "bang" tablets that
were used in a special contraption on the end of a broomstick to
create a mild explosion. Victor found a tin box that looked just the
right size to hold the tablets, and after transferring them he put the
whole thing in his pocket. The chemicals, safe enough in
cardboard but rubbed dangerously by the edges of tin, erupted
into violent fire, igniting his clothes. He ran screaming into his
father's office; then, driven to panic by the pain, turned from his
father and ran through the house, creating even more blistering
flames. Catching up with him in the kitchen, his father seized his
pants and ripped them off, thereby undoubtedly saving his life.
Victor's upper thigh was badly burned. He spent forty days in bed,
attended by a sympathetic doctor who hurt him "like hell" but was
so kindly with his "I am so sorry to do this but I must" that even the
torturing peroxide, a remedy of dubious value later, was robbed of
some of its sting. The experience left him with a scar the size of a

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

41

man's hand and a memory that would shape his concept of a good
physician for the rest of his life.

Was it homesickness for India that kept Eagle restless, seemingly
forever seeking some new medium of fulfillment? Or was it
perhaps nostalgia for his boyhood on the Missouri farm, turned to
such effective use in the orphanage work, that fostered a yearning
to return to the land? Whatever the reason, although he was an
inspired preacher and much beloved pastor, he remained in Alma
only two years. With a legacy from his father, a fortune it seemed,
he decided to buy land and settle on a farm in Idaho. In that
pioneer country there would be as much opportunity for
evangelism as in the villages of India.

Victor remained in Alma to finish the eighth grade, but he shared
in the excitement of the family's exodus in March 1908. They were
to be real pioneers. Eagle had purchased a buggy and wagon and
four horses that were to go with them on the Union Pacific railway,
he and the boys feeding and caring for the animals along the way.
But they were not to reach Idaho. On the train, crossing eastern
Wyoming, Eagle made the acquaintance of a persuasive land
salesman who painted a glowing picture of a utopia.

"Idaho? Why go way out there when we've got something better
right here? Eden Valley it's called, and I tell you it's a real Garden of
Eden. Fifty miles north of Rock Springs, up toward Wind River
country, they're building a big irrigation system, supposed to
become operative in a few months, maybe in time for spring
planting. I tell you, it's going to change the world up there, bring
prosperity to everybody with the guts to seize the opportunity.
Your children will have everything!"

Eagle was easily persuaded. The six hundred miles already
traveled seemed interminable, with nothing but uncertainty at the
end of hundreds yet to go. The prospect of riches did not tempt
him, but the promise of good, irrigated land did. He was trusting if
not gullible, and the picture of a "valley of Eden" was irresistible.
They all left the train at Rock Springs, a coal mining town with a
hotel, a hospital, and good stores. Taking the horses, cart, buggy,
and sufficient provisions for the fifty-mile trip, the Rambos headed
north. Remembering a journey long ago in an ox cart through
swirling waters, as well as innumerable jaunts in dandys, bullock
bandies, and rickshaws, Kate found the bone-shaking fifty miles
into virgin country not merely routine but instead exciting. Re¬
stored almost fully to health, she was ready once more to pioneer.

In Alma Victor lived with Robert L. Keester, a lawyer, and his
wife, Nell, church friends with a limitless capacity for love and
hospitality. During his forty days in bed the previous year, Nell had

42

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

helped Kate nurse him back to health. "She was as lovely as Jesus,"
he was to say of her later, "for she knew Him intimately." Graduat¬
ing from the eighth grade that June, he left to join the family. His
father met him at Rock Springs and they drove to Farson, which
was to be his home for the next five years.

He found a little three-room shack built by his father with the
help of friendly neighbors. Its boards were covered with tar paper,
and it had a stove for cooking and heating and bunks for sleeping,
the boys on one side, their parents and Helen on the other. The
house was on a plateau, about a hundred yards from a bank that
descended to a valley, through which ran the Little Sandy River.
Everywhere there was sagebrush except in one small area where
Eagle, Philip, and Huber had cleared the sand away with the
horses, Tom, Jerry, Jack, and Ranger. There they planted potatoes.
The four horses were as varied in personality as people: Jerry was
the safest, steadiest, and most friendly; Tom was jumpy and ner¬
vous, nearly leaping out of his harness at the slightest touch; Jack
was lazy but dependable; his partner. Ranger, was impulsive. Later
Eagle bought two more horses. Pearl and Irene.

Utopia? Eden? Hardly. It was more like being exiled from that
garden of abundance, condemned to toil in cursed ground and eat
bread by the sweat of one's brow. Not that the family objected to
toil and sweat or was at all unhappy. Eagle labored from dawn to
dark completing their crude house and bam, coaxing crops out of
the dry soil. His legacy was soon exhausted in the purchase of
land, tools, wagons, and horses. Faithfully he applied his long
experience in farming, but the high, dry earth of southwestern
Wyoming was far from the well-watered plains of Missouri and
Nebraska, and the promised irrigation system took years to com¬
plete. Kate was a seemingly endless source of love and energy, the
cohesive magic welding the struggling family together. Although
faced with conditions as primitive as those in India and with no
servants—no bhisti to carry water, no dhobi to wash clothes, no
sweeper, cook, or bearer—during all the five years she uttered no
word of complaint. And not for years had she been so strong and
healthy.

The first winter was a foretaste of those to come—snow, cold,
but beauty outside and warmth of glowing fires within. Their only
fuel was sagebrush, with an occasional bag of coal, but even when
the temperature went down to forty below, the little house was
never cold. Victor avowed one could hear the squeaking of the cart
wheels on packed snow a mile away. To get forage the horses often
had to paw the snow away from the dry, frozen grass of the Little
Sandy Creek Valley. The boys broke ice in the creek for their

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

43

drinking water, the purity of which they took for granted, unfortu¬
nately not boiling it as in India; it was doubtless the source of the
typhoid fever that Dorothy Helen contracted and from which she
never fully recovered.

Food was barely adequate for subsistence: there were potatoes
and vegetables they had been able to grow and eggs from the flock
of hens until a weasel got into the chicken coop and killed every
bird. Then, thanks to the constant freeze, the chickens were pre¬
served for eating. But the killing frost was not always such a
blessing. One year they managed to get a good crop of potatoes. A
bulletin from the Agriculture Department said that if they could be
buried to a certain depth they would not freeze. Holes were dug as
directed, the potatoes were buried deep, and every one froze solid.
Frozen potatoes! What tasteless mush!

However, Eagle's more important plantings thrived. From the
beginning he had gathered a small congregation of believers, and it
was growing. Services were held on the second story of the village
meeting house, over the hall used for dances, socials, and town
meetings. He published articles in the church paper. The Christian
Standard , urging other members of the faith to join him in Eden
Valley. Always the optimist, he was certain the promise that had
brought him there would soon be fulfilled. With water the dry soil
would spring forth with abundance.

During the five years in Eden Valley, Victor grew from boyhood
into manhood. He learned, not in school, but from tutors as expert
in imparting knowledge as teachers of math and spelling. He
learned in the potato fields, where he was soon recognized as the
best potato "eye dropper" in that part of Wyoming—at least in his
own estimation. He learned about horses. He drove them, plowed
with them, fed and curried them, rode them without a saddle—all
but Irene, who with Pearl had come from a farm thirty-five miles
north, up in the Wind River Mountains. Nobody had ever been
able to ride Irene. But one time when they went to Rock Springs,
Victor decided, "She's getting older now. I'll try her. "He got on her
back. She looked around at him with a twinkle in her eye and
threw him, straight onto a manure pile five feet high, unhurt
except for clothes and dignity.

He also learned from books in the little library in Farson, a
hundred of them read in the first three years. He reveled in the
world of adventure with Cooper and Jack London and pored by
lamplight over magazines like the Saturday Evening Post apd St.
Nicholas . He learned from roaming a wide, free, wonderful country
grazed by thousands of sheep and spotted with deer.

He was forced to learn by the demand to face dire emergencies

44

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

with courage, as when his father broke his leg. They were starting
on the trip home from 14 Mile House to Farson when it happened.
The small store in Farson was ill-equipped, and it was necessary to
go to Rock Springs for most supplies like shoes, clothing, coffee,
and flour. On such a trip there was also a possibility of bringing
back goods for the Farson store that helped pay the expenses of
travel. This time Victor and his father had been to the big town
alone and had stopped overnight at 14 Mile House, the only build¬
ing on the whole fifty-mile trail. The next morning, when they
were ready to start. Ranger, one of the two pole horses, balked at
putting his shoulder into the collar. Eagle, sitting on the seat at the
front of the box wagon, reached down and gave the horse a swift
prod with his foot. To Victor's horror the startled beast kicked,
planting his hoofs against the wagon bed, one of them on his
father's lower leg. Both bones were broken. A gang of men putting
up the first telephone line from Rock Springs to Farson sprang into
action. One of the team made a rough splint out of boards from
commissary boxes. Eagle had to be taken to Rock Springs Hospital.
But how? The family buggy was at Eden Valley, and there was no
spring wagon in the place, only a buckboard. It had to do. Eagle
was laid on straw and blankets in the bottom. Tom and Jerry were
hitched to it, and Victor drove. It was an agonizing trip for both,
Victor trying desperately to avoid the deepest ruts and travel as
swiftly yet as smoothly as possible, his father suffering torture,
with every jounce crushing his bones on each other at the break.
They reached the hospital at about five o'clock on the summer
afternoon.

"Can you pay for the treatment?" was the first question. No. But
there was only a moment's hesitation. They took him in, and the
doctor came immediately.

"When you get word that my leg has been set," ordered Eagle,
"take Tom and Jerry and start back to 14 Mile House, change
horses, and go right on to Farson. Tell Mother I'm all right." Word
had been taken to her of the accident by people going to Farson,
and they knew she would worry.

Victor took a hasty meal at a Chinese restaurant, saw that the
horses were fed, and started off in the evening. By ten he had
reached 14 Mile House. There he changed the buckboard for the
farm wagon, hitched Jack and Ranger to it, and started off on the
remaining thirty-six miles. Having had no rest, he became unbear¬
ably sleepy and awoke to find the wagon on the flat by Little Sandy
Creek. Fortunately the horses had taken the circuitous route down
from the highland. Otherwise they would have plunged over the
edge of a cliff. He arrived home at dawn. Mother was calm and

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

45

understanding. She fed him porridge and insisted that he rest. He
crawled into his bunk to sleep for a good twenty-four hours. Father
recovered with no sign of crippling, and nothing was ever charged
or paid for his care. Was it only one day and one night? They had
seemed like many years. But a boy grew to manhood quickly in
such a world.

Victor was doing a man's job at sixteen, earning money that the
family so desperately needed. The company constructing the irri¬
gation canals needed a water boy, and Victor was hired, acquiring
further education both in backbreaking labor and in the exposure
to obscene language. Each worker tried to outdo his neighbor in
watching the minister's son squirm. True, they treated him with
kindness, even respect, but their language and lewd stories, far
filthier than the gali of his Indian childhood, became indelibly
etched in his memory. Although he never used them, he felt guilt
just for remembering.

That job was only temporary, and soon he got a more permanent
one driving a fresno, a kind of elongated metal basket with a
cutting edge that could pick up earth, then dump it for construc¬
tion of an irrigation ditch. Unfortunately he listened to com-
plainers who insisted the seven-dollars-a-day pay was not
enough. They persuaded him to join in a slowdown tactic. He was
fired. But he had to work because the family needed what he could
earn, just to eat.

He went to Rock Springs, and the Congregational minister
whose church the family sometimes attended recommended him
for a job in the hospital to which he had taken his father. He was
made an orderly at a dollar a day plus board and room. Every cent
went to his family. All that he had was theirs as a matter of course.

His first assignment in the operating room was a dizzy blur.
When the surgery started he turned green, and the surgeon sent
him outside. He stood at the door of the hospital, swaying and
gulping great drafts of air. But it was the last time such a thing
happened. He soon proved to be a valuable assistant. His reputa¬
tion for keeping bedpans clean surpassed that of any previous
worker—early evidence of a perfectionist in sanitation.

The one resident doctor interning in the hospital taught him all
the commonest and many more-specialized procedures, like
catheterization. He also saved Victor's eyesight. One day Victor
was getting pure phenol out of a bottle when a glob of the liquid
shot into one of his eyes. There he stood, helpless, not knowing
what to do. Forever he would be grateful to the young resident
who seized him by the ears, dragged him to the sink in which the
bedpans were washed, turned him over face up, and started the

46

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

water running. He washed and washed and washed, lifting the
upper lid so that the whole conjunctive sac was bathed in the
cleansing stream. By evening the eye was only slightly smarting. In
the morning Victor would hardly have known the accident had
happened. Had the young resident but known it, he had saved the
sight of not one but tens of thousands of people.

It was only a month or two after this incident that the young
doctor left the hospital, and Victor found himself performing many
of his duties. He was frequently called to assist in the operating
room, especially with emergencies at midnight, when he could
always be depended on to come promptly, scrub up thoroughly,
and execute orders with reasonable efficiency. He learned to re¬
cognize and handle the different surgical knives and other instru¬
ments. He was put in complete charge of the catheterization of
paraplegics and gained a reputation in those preantibiotic days of
preventing the infections and pressure sores common to such
patients. He discovered to his surprise that he enjoyed caring for
the sick.

"Could I attend some of the nursing classes?" he asked the
superintendent.

"Why, of course you can," was the pleased reply.

He did so, attending every class available, a discipline that
proved of inestimable value in years to come. He experienced a
sense of the comfort and well-being of the patient that only nursing
could generate. But fully as pertinent to his future as the practical
knowledge attained was another discovery, the potential of prayer
and spiritual empathy in the ministry of healing. As he was to put
the experience into words long afterward, "Calling upon God for
help that no human being can give, leading the patient to receive
from his illness the gift of patience that only illness can give, to help
patients understand and trust Holy Reason that deals with us in
illness as found nowhere else except in the realm of dire difficulty
or medical-surgical failure—this is the province of earnest prayer."

He was within two months of graduating from the nursing
course with a registered nurse's certificate when his life changed
abruptly.

For Eagle the five years in Eden Valley had been a detour from
the mainstream of life. The promise of a garden of abundance
remained unrealized. Although he had conducted an aggressive
and somewhat productive ministry in the valley, the grueling
struggle for subsistence had left little time for pastoral care. He
missed the deep involvement with people and their problems.
There were other worries too. The children were not getting an
adequate education. Although she never complained, Kate was

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

47

performing labors that should have taxed the energies of two
strong women. And the weakness of Dorothy Helen following her
long bout with typhoid sounded a warning bell of the dangers of
pioneer life. Dr. Chambers had willingly traveled the fifty miles
from Rock Springs to attend her, never sending any bill, but the
distance from medical help was alarming. When in 1913 Eagle
received a call to a pastorate in Emmett, Idaho, hope sprang anew.
Had they not been on the way to Idaho when, for good or ill, they
had turned aside? Perhaps, like the Children of Israel, it was meant
that they should spend this time of testing and discipline in the
wilderness before being led to the promised land.

Emmett was only a few miles from Boise. Somehow Victor's
reputation as a medical assistant preceded him. No sooner had he
arrived than he was called to Boise on a nursing case. "Will you
take a man with delirium tremens to Portland?" he was asked.
"The pay will be nine dollars a day." Would he! It seemed a fortune.
Mr. Johnson was a wealthy bar owner who had succumbed to the
temptations of his business. Victor took him to a nursing home in
Portland and cared for him until he died. Here he was soon recog¬
nized as a competent nurse with unusual devotion to his patient,
and he was caring for other patients as well, often on twenty-
four-hour duty.

But during his father's pastorate in Emmett he also started his
high school studies, determined to finish in as short a time as
possible. Because of his wide reading, most subjects were easily
mastered—except Latin, two years of which were required. An
obliging teacher offered to tutor him. In March 1914 his father was
called to the pastorate of the First Christian Church in Chehalis,
Washington, where Victor was to remain until September 1915.
Here he was able to finish his high school course, having com¬
pleted it in two years and three months.

It was a time to be treasured in memory, perhaps with a sensing
that it was the last year the family would be together, a time of
well-being, of security, the years of deprivation having passed.
Dorothy Helen, whose sickness had had a long aftermath of
chronic weakness, seemed to be improving. She was able to attend
grade school. Victor would wait to walk with her, adjusting to her
slow pace, delighting in her joyous spirit that suffering, which she
accepted cheerfully and without the slightest sign of worry, had
been unable to quell.

Victor was twenty-one when he finished high school. He had no
job, no plans, and certainly no expectation of going to college.
Then came one of those occurrences that he was later to call a
"wondhap"—not a miracle, which would imply transcendence of

48

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

a known law of nature, but a wonderful happening that depends
on and is not contrary to the known or unknown laws of God. Yet
to a person like Victor, who believed thoroughly in the admonition
to "pray without ceasing/' it was a certain indication of the pres¬
ence of God and of His guidance. It might come in many forms—
coincidence, a meeting with a stranger, an unexpected trip, or a
chance conversation. This time it was a letter.

His mother's sister. Aunt Flora Colby Clough, was dean of
women and professor of English at Fairmount College, Wichita,
Kansas. Victor did not know her well. He had met her in New
Hampshire the summer they had returned from India, but since
then the families had been widely separated.

"Come to Wichita," she wrote, "and I will help you get through
college."

The jumbled puzzle pieces of his life began to fall into place. The
discipline of hard labor; the struggle for an education at an age
when most young men were long through high school; and espe¬
cially the endless hours at meager pay in the general hospital,
discovering an innate joy in watching by a sickbed, giving ease to a
sufferer, assisting at midnight operations, even scouring into close
to sterile cleanliness a dirty bedpan — all became segments of a
well-defined pattern. It was inevitable that he should become a
doctor.

3

F airmount! The very name was full of promise, like standing on
a high hill overlooking sunlit vistas. Victor arrived late, after
classes had started. Dorothy Helen had suffered a relapse that
summer of 1915, with severe edema, and he had postponed leaving
home. But after some time in the hospital in Portland, she had
recovered sufficiently to return to Chehalis, and the family had
decided it was safe for him to leave. He had scarcely arrived and
enrolled in classes when on October 18 he received a telegram
telling of her death. The skies turned dark, the promising vistas a
wasteland separating him from those he loved. He could not afford
to go home, even for her funeral. So much loveliness went out of
his world with her blithe and joyous spirit. Yet it was not for
himself that he felt the deepest grief, but for his parents. He knew
that Kate would miss her only daughter every day for the rest of
her life.

But the routine of college demanded all his energies. The pre¬
medical course was rigorous in its discipline. Arriving late, it was
all he could do to keep pace with his assignments. Aunt Flora
Clough, who had secured a scholarship for him and was paying his
other bills, was a strict but kindly mentor. As dean of women and
head of the English department, she had raised the morale of the
college to high standards, sending out into the world many women
of superior mental and spiritual caliber. Victor was to meet one of
them later in Madras, Mrs. Marie Buck, who with her husband,
Crowe Buck, started the first physical training school in all Asia.
Aunt Flora was as sternly vigilant of her nephew's lifestyle as she
was of that of her women charges.

"If you ever get mixed up in anything questionable," she ad¬
monished, "out you go, and I won't support you."

Victor nodded soberly "Anything questionable," he knew, re¬
ferred to indiscreet adventures with the other sex, and she was in a
position to hear of the slightest indiscretion. But she need not have
worried. His standards of behavior were as high as her own, and

49

50

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

anyway, if he was going to study medicine, he would have no time
for women.

He managed to find time, however, for some extracurricular
activities. Always competitive, he aspired for prowess in athletics
and went out for football; but he succeeded only in playing center
on the scrub team and in learning how to fall without hurting
himself. His chief service to athletics was acting as trainer, rubbing
down charley horses for ailing runners and football players.
Equally mediocre was his single attempt to storm the citadel of
drama. His status as nephew of a famous aunt gave him an unde¬
served reputation as a master of English, and he was given a part in
a Shakespeare sketch. Never could he remember the correct word¬
ing, and his poor paraphrase elicited kindly but summary dis¬
missal to the wings. There ended all opportunity of entering the
world of theater.

It was a small loss. He preferred living heroes to dead ones, and
he found them all around him. There were teachers who in¬
fluenced him profoundly: his aunt, Flora Clough; Dean Hoare; and
Doctor Smith in chemistry, a man of humor as well as keen intel¬
lect. (A student once called him "Doc." "Don't call me 'Doc,'" he
retorted. "I am no horse.") Dr. Walter Scott Priest, minister of the
church he attended, gave Victor constant inspiration and
encouragement. And the world came to Fairmount and Christian
Central Church. Fairmount College, later to become part of Wichita
State University, was an institution that sent men and women all
over the world for service. Missionaries came from many coun¬
tries, describing their experiences and winning recruits. One
couple, Merrill Isley and his wife, had done valiant work in Turkey.
Attending one of their meetings, Victor found himself staring at a
Student Volunteer card that Merrill had placed in his hand.

"It is my purpose, God permit," he read, "to become a foreign
missionary." There was a place below for a signature.

Suddenly it seemed as if he had been walking along a blind path,
trusting in God's guidance but not knowing where it led. Now all
at once he emerged into sunlight with a straight road ahead. Of
course. All his experience had been preparing him for this moment
of challenge. Purposes that heretofore had been vague and uncer¬
tain now came into clear focus. He signed his name without hesita¬
tion.

Such a commitment demanded the best of which one was capa¬
ble. An uncle by marriage. Dr. Harry Hickok, was a surgeon.
"Where," Victor asked him, "are the best medical schools in the
country?" The University of Michigan and the University of Penn¬
sylvania, was the reply. The University of Michigan required inor-

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

51

ganic chemistry for entrance, a course given by the University of
Pennsylvania in the first year. Both required a modem language.
Better the language than the chemistry, Victor decided. He applied
to the University of Pennsylvania and was accepted. Now for the
language. Deciding on German as more helpful to a doctor, he
found a young teacher who agreed to tutor him. She was not only
competent but also attractive, and he easily could have fallen in
love with her; but he expressed his emotional feeling in neither
word nor gesture.

He could have no time for women except in casual
encounters—at church meetings, songfests, hay wagon picnics,
and in stimulating conversations in the Webster Literary Society.
The nearest he came to actually falling in love was with another
student, Louise Burch. That he inspired similar emotion in her and
possibly false hopes was implied in a letter written to him by his
Aunt Flora in the fall of 1917.

"Louise has sent a letter. I knew whatever happened you would
respect her attempt to make things right. She has been utterly
miserable, unable to study or put her mind on anything. I hope you
have written her. No one knows in what direction happiness lies
for another. Each must choose."

There had been no misunderstanding. The girl had just wrongly
supposed that something she had said or done, or not said or not
done, was responsible for his not seeking a more serious relation¬
ship. Happiness? That was not his concern. Study, recite, pass that
exam, study even though you are dog-tired, rejoice momentarily
over a 94 grade in physics, but always study, the sole objective
being to prepare for a missionary career by becoming a doctor.
How? He had no money, and he would need eight hundred dollars
for his first year in medical school. Then at the end of his college
course came hope in the promise of a Mr. Johnson, superintendent
of the Sunday school at Central Christian Church.

"Go ahead, Victor," he told him. "Register in medical school. I
will see that the eight hundred dollars is raised for your first year."

With high hope Victor left for Oregon to visit his parents, now
ministering to a church in Klamath Falls. He spent that summer
working as an axeman on a surveying crew in the forests of Ore¬
gon. It was wonderful to be back in this northwest country of high
trees where, look up as far as you could, then lean back and look
some more, still you could not see the tops. He finished the
summer with a body sufficiently toughened to face a year of rigor¬
ous study and barely enough money to buy a coach railroad ticket
to Philadelphia by way of Wichita. But he had no worries. Arriving
in Wichita, however, he found to his surprise that not a cent of the

52

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

promised fund had been raised. Another member of the church,
Mr. Jackson, president of the Wichita Flour Mills, heard of his
predicament and gave him twenty-five dollars.

"I will give you another twenty-five dollars at Christmas," he
promised.

What was he to do? Victor's faith, usually impregnable, was
sorely tested. Start out on a four-to-six year course with empty
pockets, trusting that the wherewithal would drop, like manna,
from heaven? It seemed the brashest presumption. But he had the
railroad ticket, all paid for. He would go to Philadelphia.

Arriving in the evening, he called on Mr. Chenowith, minister of
the First Christian Church, with whom he had corresponded and
who made arrangements for him to spend the night at the City
Club. The next morning Victor went to the university campus,
where he met Dr. Joseph Smith, professor of pathology and dean
of the medical school, who helped him through the enrollment
procedure. Everything went like clockwork—except for one thing.
He had to have four hundred dollars to pay tuition for his first year.
Mr. Chenowith advised him to consult Dana How, secretary of the
university Christian Association. "He may be able to advise you,"
he said with an encouraging smile.

Advise! It was money he needed, not advice. By now his meager
capital of twenty-five dollars had shrunk to a mere ten. The blind
faith that had buoyed him on the long train trip from Wichita and
carried him with brash optimism through the signing up for
courses was slowly shrinking with it. Eight hundred dollars! It
seemed as unattainable as a million. Still, he knew he must
doggedly persist. He found Dana How to be a kindly, understand-
ing person who listened sympathetically to his story.

"Am I a fool," Victor demanded bluntly, "to think of going to
medical school with only ten dollars in my pocket?"

Dana How looked him straight in the eye. "Victor," he said, "if
you have faith, you can stay."

Victor's eyes wavered. "I—I'll be back,'' he said.

He went from the association office the short distance to his
room on Sansom Street. He shut the door and knelt beside the bed.
Mr. How had not even mentioned money. All he had talked about
was faith. "Give me faith. Lord," Victor prayed. "Give me enough
faith. A few minutes later he was on his feet, opening the door
wide, hurrying out to Sansom Street, almost running back to the
Christian Association office.

'I m going to stay," he told Dana How, and this time his eyes did
not waver.

"Right." The response was swift and reassuring. "We have

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

53

books in our loan library which you may use. If you will go to this
building on Walnut Street"—he gave him the number—"They
will arrange to give you breakfast for waiting on table an hour
in the morning, the same for lunch and dinner. That will take care
of your meals. As for the rest, we'll just have to keep on trusting."

Neither of them could have guessed it, but Dana How had just
become the first member of what was to be known as the "Rambo
Committee," an organization that was to grow like an Indian
banyan tree, thrusting down roots, overspreading the earth, and
giving comfort to tens of thousands.

Mr. Chenowith solved another of Victor's problems, arranging
for him to work as janitor for the temporary meeting place of the
First Christian Church, a storefront building on Broad Street near
Erie Avenue, a job that would pay enough to cover room and
laundry. He would go on the street cars, into center city and out
Broad Street to Erie, a journey that took some time from his new
room on 34th Street and Walnut in West Philadelphia. His work
required several hours on Thursday evenings and Sunday morn¬
ings. Now all he needed was the four hundred dollars for his actual
medical school fees.

At Dr. Joseph Smith's suggestion he consulted the dean's bro¬
ther, Dr. Edgar Fahs Smith, provost of the university. Because he
knew the interview might mean success or failure, Victor was
awkward, almost tongue-tied. Haltingly he explained that he was
a Student Volunteer for missions, that he wanted to be a doctor so
he could render more useful service in whatever place he might be
needed most. The provost listened quietly. "Sit down, son," he
said presently. Victor did so and became more at ease. They talked
for perhaps ten minutes about his early life in India, his family, and
his religious commitment.

"Come back on Saturday," said Dr. Smith, rising with a gesture
of dismissal.

That was Wednesday. There was no time for worry. Already
Victor was taking a full course of study and waiting on tables three
hours a day. When at ten he quit studying for the day, almost
before he could say, "Thank you, God, I had a good meal at the
boarding house," he was wrapped in sleep. He went back on
Saturday, wondering, but faith still unwavering. Dr. Smith rose
from his desk and led him to an adjacent room in which there was a
window like a bank teller's. Putting his hand on Victor's shoulder,
he said to the woman behind the window, "This man is Victor
Rambo, and he is worthy of a scholarship." It was as if God
Himself had touched him and said, "You are worthy." Soon he was
holding in his hand a slip of paper and reading the words, "This

54

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

entitles the bearer, Victor C. Rambo, to cancellation of all fees
except the $10 for athletics for the year 1917-1918, and on passing
his examinations a similar scholarship for the next four years/'

"Take this to the dean of the medical school," Dr. Smith directed,
"and you will have no difficulty." A miracle? No. Another "wond-
hap."

Although the solution of his financial problems gave Victor
assurance that God had accepted his commitment, it was soon
obvious that He had no intention of making the path of achieve¬
ment easy. That first year of medical school tested all his powers of
endurance. Study was rigorous. It could well have occupied
twelve or fifteen hours of each day. But in addition he had to wait
on table three hours. He had to travel six miles by streetcar to the
church at which he served as janitor. It was one of the bitterest
winters in Philadelphia history, and Victor could afford nothing
heavier than his thin overcoat. Thanks no doubt to the rigors of the
Oregon forests, however, he suffered not even a cold.

Yet life was not all work and study, for some form of athletics was
required. He started with boxing but, unable to wear his glasses,
got headaches. He switched to fencing. His teacher was Leonardo
Terrone, an international champion who had devoted his life to
perfection of this sport. Under this master, Victor developed such
skill that he was able to make the university team for two of the four
years he was in medical school. The same grace, swiftness, and
coordination that had made jigging such a natural diversion soon
made him a superior fencer, and he loved the sport. Thanks to
Terrone's teaching he became as adept with one hand as with the
other, a facility that was to prove of inestimable value in his surgical
career. "Where's your point?" his instructor was constantly de¬
manding. Victor used his right hand largely for the saber, but after
going into foils he used his left for all his competitions. Terrone had
devised a foil of his own design, combining the advantages of the
more rigid Italian grip with the greater flexibility of the French, and
Victor had his own set that he later took to India with him. He won
many competitions in the Philadelphia Club and always thought
that he would have won first place in the college finals in New York
if Terrone had not for once given the wrong advice.

"Don't relax before a match. Keep your tensions so you will
spring like a tiger on your opponent!" was Terrone's advice.

Victor obeyed. After a long bus ride from Philadelphia, he went
into the match without resting, still tense but very tired. At the
crucial point of the match he failed and came out only second. But
the defeat taught him an important lesson. In years to come he
would always stretch out in complete relaxation before a long siege

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

55

of operations. A more tangible memento of his athletic prowess
was an ornate silver cup won just before his graduation at an
amateur fencers' meet. There was also a gold medal given him by
the Fencing Club of Philadelphia when he came back from India on
his first furlough.

At the end of his first year, Victor failed to pass anatomy class,
but he could retake the examination in the fall. Fail again? He had
to pass. He not only had to study hard that summer, but he also
had to earn as much money as possible. It was war time, and he
secured a job at seven dollars a day as ship carpenter at the
Torresdale Shipyard. But far more significant than his earnings
were the friendships he made that summer. One day, sitting at
lunch, he met Morris Wistar Wood, another university student,
who invited him to his home on School Lane in Germantown.
While there he met the Woods' neighbors, Charles, Margaret,
Isabelle, and Robert Haines, a family with whom he would be
intimately involved during the next half century. The Haines's
ancestral home, Wyck, a beautiful and historic mansion in Ger¬
mantown dating from 1690, would become a haven for him and his
family through years of constant change.

In the fall of 1918, Victor to his vast relief passed the anatomy
examination. The war now became a controlling factor. Medical
students had previously been exempt from service, but his whole
class was now enrolled in the army. It was in one way a boon, for all
expenses were covered. Uniforms were supplied. Kitchens were
organized to provide meals. But military training was added to the
roster of medical studies. The tedious process of marching was
lightened, however, by moments of humorous relief. As the re¬
cruits would "right-left" smartly past the nurses' quarters by the
hospital, there would always be curious watchers at the windows.
"Eyes right'." the commanding officer liked to shout, and as the
concerted glances turned gleefully in their direction, every face at
the windows would disappear.

With the end of the war in 1919, the class was discharged. Many
who had entered medicine to avoid combat duty, at least 20 percent
of the class, left. Victor was now facing his years of clinical training,
even more rigorous than the preceding two. His money was gone.
It would be far more difficult to wait on tables for his meals, and
traveling six miles for janitorial duty was out of the question. Must
he stay out for a year or more and work? Already he was twenty-
five, with at least four more years of medical study, including
internship. He begrudged every diversion that delayed the service
to which he was dedicated. Then came another "wondhap." Wis¬
tar Wood's uncle Ned Wood, who was a volunteer worker with the

56

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Christian Association, interceded with members of the Pennsyl¬
vania Medical Missionary Society who gave help to students enter¬
ing mission work, and they assigned Victor a stipend of four
hundred dollars a year, enough to provide food and lodging
through medical school.

Jubilantly he applied himself with single-minded zest to his
studies, resolving that nothing would impede progress toward his
goal—not unrelated work, not recreation, and certainly not ro¬
mance. Not that he scorned friendly associations with girls or
failed to cast one occasionally in the role of future wife. One girl he
found particularly attractive confessed that she had a heart mur¬
mur. She was certainly no candidate for the foreign field, he con¬
cluded. Then a girl from a fine Christian family invited him to go on
a picnic. She seemed to have qualifications for a missionary, but his
enthusiasm quietly waned.

But he was thrust into one relationship that made resistance
difficult. In the winter of 1919 he went with a trainload of young
people to a Student Volunteer convention in Des Moines, Iowa. It
was a time of gaiety as well as sober inspiration, and Victor helped
liven the trip home by jigging in the train aisle and participating in
silly songs, one of which he would always remember:

He ate some cabbage, some fell on his vest.

He ate some pork chops, some fell on his vest.

He ate some apple and then some scrapple
and as he ate them, some fell on his vest.

Now this is no fable, when his wife was not able
To buy hash for the table she cut up his vest.

He was thrown into the company of a very attractive girl. Arriv¬
ing at Altoona en route to Philadelphia, she found she had missed
her train and had to send a telegram. Victor went into the station
with her. "There's my other train!" she exclaimed when they came
out. "If I don't hurry, I'll miss that, too." She rushed off ahead of
him. Following, Victor saw her move straight into the path of an
oncoming locomotive. Darting forward, risking his own safety, he
dragged her back just in time. She clung to him, face drained of
color, unable to express her gratitude. He saw her to her train and
almost forgot the incident.

Arriving home, he received a letter from the girl's father, James
G. Biddle, thanking him for himself and his family for saving
Dorothy's life and inviting im to visit their home. He did so, not
once but many times. The girl was one of five attractive sisters, at
least two of whom manifested interest in the tall, angular, young

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

57

student whose deep voice was as eloquent in telling jokes as in
saying grace at the table, who could convulse in merriment one
minute by his jigging and seriously discuss the needs of India the
next. Victor could well have been romantically attracted to at least
one of the girls, but once more he did not make any commitment or
compromise himself by the slightest act of intimacy. His standards
were puritanical, and for the present he had to live a life of routine,
with fun and fellowship and a good meal now and then, but
leaving all romance and adventure for the future.

Not so his parents, for in that year of 1919, William Eagle and
Kate Rambo were embarking on a mission as challenging as the
one in India. They had been asked by the Near East Relief agencies
to superintend an orphanage in Turkey. Victor met them in New
York and saw them off for Constantinople with the S. S. Black Arrow
on September 19. Never had he seen them so excited, so youthfully
buoyant. They were like exiles returning to a beloved homeland.
Although they were sailing into seas still strewn with mines,
bound for a region that was a hotbed of confusion and mayhem,
they expressed not the slightest worry, only a reluctance to leave
their three boys so widely scattered, Philip working in Indiana,
Huber at the University of Oregon.

It was Victor who feared, for he knew the dangers into which
they were venturing. The Ottoman Empire was in its last throes of
dissolution. In the struggle of rival forces for control of the remain¬
ing Turkish territory, the minority of Christian Armenians had
been made scapegoats, and the Western world had been horrified
by news of Armenian massacres. The orphans who would be the
Rambos' charges were not only the result of those massacres but
also possible targets. Even the voyage to their destination was
hazardous, and he waited anxiously for their first letter. It was not
reassuring. They had encountered a storm on the Atlantic, eight
days of it.

"The boat tossed and rolled and cork-screwed! Rain came in
sheets. When the storm first struck us, we made a brave fight. But
our 'innards' finally caved in. We, mind you! We were madder than
March hares, for had we not sailed the seven seas? . . .God be with
you. I want you to realize that what has happened to us is a
perfectly marvelous and unusual thing. What we are doing is
heroic. Some would say it is foolhardy. Possibly. But it is not
cowardly."

The next letter, written the middle of October, was even less
reassuring.

"Today, along the coast of Sicily, boats move out cutting away
the mines. Yesterday we had a fire drill again, putting on our life

58

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

belts and forming in line on the deck. I am afraid you will worry,
waiting to hear of our safety, but remember this. Dr. McCallum has
your name, and if anything happens to us, you will get a telegram
at once, and no news will always be good news."

During th^ following weeks and months Victor lived in two
worlds, the peaceful city of William Penn's founding and the
tumultuous coastland of Asia Minor, where Paul had once plied his
trade of tentmaking. The orphanage of 350 children to which they
were assigned was at Harounie, In the mountains seventy-five
miles from Adana, not far from the Mediterranean. It had been left
by the Germans, allies of the Turks in the war. As their first letters
were full of their work, the beauties of their surroundings, and
their struggle to secure provisions for their orphans (How reminis¬
cent of India!), Victor felt easier in mind. Then in January the storm
broke. The Turks laid siege to the town of Marash, less than fifty
miles from Harounie, and the French, who had been given the
protectorate of Cilicia, were forced to withdraw. Five thousand
Armenians were slain. An American home for Armenian girls was
sacked and burned, the girls murdered. The tragedy was reported
in the American news media, and Victor heard of it long before his
parents. He waited for their next letter with great apprehension. It
came a month later.

"Thirty-five hundred Armenians marched out behind the
French—men, women, children, without preparation—on foot!
The weather was bitter cold, and there was snow, knee deep. Over
1500 of the refugees perished. We have 220 French troops here
now, entrenched all around us. ... At nine one morning I was
changing my clothes when my interpreter came and asked me to
come at once, an attack of bandits was starting! Mother went to the
front verandah and saw the women and children of the village
running in with packs of bedding, clothing, all their belongings, all
frightened nearly to death. ... Dr. William S. Dodd, Director of
Near East Relief in Adana, has twice written permission for us to
leave. But the ordeal of moving with 220 people, most of them
children, is so trying, the problem of what to do with the children
when we got to Adana so serious—the dangers are possibly
greater than those of staying here."

But he did move the orphans on March 25, just in time. On the
twenty-seventh the French captain drew all his soldiers into the
orphanage, where they were besieged furiously for four days, then
forced to leave. "The Turks came in and rifled all, plundered
everything, left nothing but a riddled building."

When the Rambos arrived in Adana in April, it was already on its
way to becoming a refuge for at least nine thousand Armenians.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

59

For weeks they were marooned there, attempting to feed and
shelter the more than two hundred orphans. The city was under
continual attack, and there was no egress. Railroads were under¬
mined; bridges were blown up. Not until June, when a twenty-day
armistice was signed, was there opportunity to move the children
to a safer place.

"Conditions were so threatening," wrote Eagle, "that I went at it
on the 13th to get the orphans out. They began to go last Wednes¬
day the 16th; and for three days we got up at 4 A.M. and took
sections of the children to station for 7 o'clock train. The last, about
180, went Friday morning. We started on Saturday. We got to
Yesidje, about 17 kilometers this side of Tarsus by 8:39. Could not
go on, so here we are back in Adana. A bridge was destroyed near
Tarsus. An armored train went on, and we heard the cannon roar
later ... so we stayed just one day too long and are marooned
here, with fighting at Tarsus and near here."

Yet, as Victor well knew, this was a message of triumph, not
complaint. Their worries had been all for the children, and they
had got every one off safely to Cyprus. Not a child had been
wounded or lost. And when they learned that all had landed
safely, the triumph would be complete. Through the rest of their
lives they would have the joy of knowing that their gifts of service,
so woefully challenged in India, where their genius had not been
recognized by fellow missionaries, had been vindicated.

That summer, Victor was acting as sole medical officer in a camp
conducted by the Christian Association for hundreds of under¬
privileged children from Philadelphia's inner-city areas. He was
roughing it in tents on beds of straw, solving problems for the first
time on his own, all the way from colds and broken bones to saving
one boy from drowning. He was well liked, remembered Paul
Thomas, one of the counselors, even this early showing compe¬
tence and dedication as a physician. Added to his other problems
was the worry that came through his parents' letters.

"June 29. Still here, not a train out yet. We have lived a year in
these ten days marooned here. People talk nothing, think nothing
but danger, siege, massacre."

On August 8, 1920, an automobile road opened briefly from
Adana to Karatash, and the Rambos set out on the hazardous
overland journey.

"The Turks were shooting at us," wrote Kate on August 19, "and
we clung to the further side of the truck so the bullets would go
through the baggage first, but father rode serenely on in the Ford.
We took a sailing vessel when we reached Karatash for Mersene 40
miles. Slept on a coil of chain. I am black and blue. We put our

60

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

trunks on a water buffalo cart to take to the ship, and when they got
down to the water they ran right in, cart and all. All our things
spoiled! We have certainly had plenty of experiences, but I would
not have missed it for the world!"

In September they were on another assignment in Batoum on
the Black Sea, working with Greek refugees, exchanging the dan¬
gers of shellfire for those of cholera, typhus, and plague.

"A man died in an adjacent room from plague just before we
came. We hardly think of these things. Perhaps not enough. You
know we were through them all in India."

Kate wrote, "I go to a refugee barracks on the seaside where
there are 4,000 refugees living in tents made with bits of carpet, old
dresses, or anything, and give out milk to about 200 sick people—
starving, dying, poor ragged folk. ... If these people get off to
Greece where they are bound, our work here will be finished.
Have rain almost all the time, two weeks of it. Terrible on the
thousands of refugees, many of them almost naked, some abso¬
lutely so. We are helpless to help them, having no money at our
disposal. About 6,000 of them have been held up by lack of orders.
Now they are going aboard ship, and as soon as they get off we
shall be free."

The Rambos returned to American in January 1921. Victor met
their ship in New York, and they spent some time in Philadelphia,
recuperating. The two years of stress had aged them, etched de¬
eper lines, and aggravated physical weaknesses, yet given them a
deep spiritual satisfaction. Eagle especially had acquired a new
serenity. The restlessness and frustration of the years away from
India had given way to a sense of fulfillment. Once more God had
permitted him to save the lives of hundreds of orphans, giving new
meaning and purpose to all the intervening years.

Kate, always serene and competent, had changed little. Victor
marveled anew at her courage. Trained now in medicine, he could
better appreciate the amazing incident related to him of her early
years in India when, suffering from a painful thrombosed vein, she
had performed surgery on herself, taking a sharp scalpel and
lancing the affected vein area. He could not help envying his
father. Would he, Victor, ever find a wife to compare with her?

That year he started his hospital residency. Thanks to the in¬
fluence of James Biddle he was admitted to Pennsylvania Hospital,
one of the foremost training centers in the world. With the other
interns, he lived in the oldest section of the hospital; it contained
some of the wards, but much of his work, including the X-ray
department, was in a building across the office area. At the end of
this area was a picture by Benjamin West of Christ healing the sick.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

61

a large mural perhaps twelve by fifteen feet, a constant reminder of
the commitment Victor had made of his life. Sometime, he vowed,
a picture like that would adorn the wall of a hospital in some
foreign land. Which one? As yet he had not the slightest idea. He
was willing to go to any place where he was needed— except.

A book on hygiene once read for an examination had led to this
“exception." The book described in lurid detail the ravages of
sleeping sickness, a disease that is indigenous to Africa and carried
by the tsetse fly. There on the pages were enlarged, horrible pic¬
tures of the fly and one of an African victim in the throes of death.
Victor had stared at them in revulsion. He would go anywhere, he
decided then and there, except where the tsetse fly and sleeping
sickness thrived. The idea had become an obsession.

His four years in medical school and two years as an intern were
giving him the best possible training for work anywhere in the
world. Many of his teachers were outstanding in their fields. There
was George W. Norris, medical chief of the hospital and instructor
in physical diagnosis, not only an extraordinary teacher but with a
respect for a mere intern that inspired confidence and loyalty.
Victor visited him several times at his apartment near Rittenhouse
Square and doubtless took advantage of his gracious willingness to
listen and answer questions. "He can listen to just so much," some
of his fellow residents cautioned him. "Don't pester him any
more." But Victor was never one to forgo such opportunities be¬
cause of modesty.

Drs. Charles Mitchell and Walter E. Lee were able instructors in
surgery. The former taught Victor a lesson that would serve him
well in years to come. One day a child seven years old was brought
in. She had been hit by a truck, was badly lacerated, and had a
fractured pelvis. "Doctor," Victor urged, "surely we should sew
her up, repair this laceration immediately."

"Victor," the doctor returned gently, "let her get well."

The child recovered completely after being operated on in due
time. So—Victor understood—the human body, such a marvel¬
ous creation, is its own best healer.

Professor Sweet, the esteemed head of experimental surgery at
the medical school, chose Victor and another student as his
partners in a surgical investigation, the results of which were
published. Dr. Sweet was so impressed with Victor's ability and
dedication that he gave him other responsibilities and finally said
to him. "You must continue your studies, Victor. After you finish
your residency, I want you to remain in my department. It's not
impossible, in fact it is quite probable, that in time you might step
into my shoes."

62

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Victor was surprised, touched, and excited. The confidence of
this respected doctor was an accolade more to be prized than his
election to membership in the National Sigma Xi Society. Become
the successor to the esteemed Dr. Sweet! For a moment he was
sorely tempted, but only for a moment.

"I'm sorry, sir, " he said. "I appreciate your confidence. But I
have already committed myself to become a missionary."

"A missionary!" said the doctor. "You mean you're going to bury
yourself in some barbaric jungle when you might have a distin¬
guished academic career in one of the world's finest universities?
But—it's not too late. You can change your mind."

"No, sir. It's a commitment I made to God. There will be no
change."

The professor regarded him with puzzled but respectful exas¬
peration. "Victor," he said finally, "you're a damned fool to waste
your life in some godforsaken—" He grinned. "No, not godforsa¬
ken. I shouldn't say that, should I?—some place apart from an
academic career. But, good luck to you."

Fellowship with other Student Volunteers during those years
kept his will warmly resolute. He attended many conferences.
Several were held at Stony Brook, Long Island, and at one of these
he met a high school girl named Louise Birch. Except for the
coincidence that she bore the name of his former college friend in
whom he had felt a romantic interest—although the name was
spelled with an "i" instead of a "u" — the meeting made little
impression, and he soon forgot it. The girl, much younger and
more impressionable, was less likely to forget the tall, gangling
stranger who during serious moments seemed charged with
spiritual electricity and at recreation could jump on a table and
keep the group in stitches by tap dancing like a professional.

At Christmas time 1922, Victor was invited to a dinner by his
friend Bob Haines, a reunion affair held in downtown Philadel¬
phia, and again he was introduced to the girl named Louise Birch.

"I met you before," she told him, as he again expressed surprise
that she bore the name of a previous friend. "It was years ago at
Stony Brook. No doubt you have forgotten."

Victor mumbled something unintelligible, for one of the few
times in his life at a loss for appropriate words. As he expressed it
later, he was completely won over. To his suddenly prejudiced eyes
she seemed the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, with her fair
complexion, blue eyes, and hair simply and neatly arranged in a
style that his conservative taste highly approved of. He could
hardly take his eyes off her the rest of the evening. If she knew that
he was attracted—and she could hardly help it—she exhibited no

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

63

special interest. She was poised, dignified, but very quiet and
retiring. Although they had some conversation together, afterward
Victor could remember nothing that was said. Later from Bob
Haines he found out more about her.

She lived with her mother, who was a doctor's daughter, and her
brother, Tom, in Germantown. Her father was deceased. When
Victor discovered that Louise was a sophomore at Wilson College
and one of the most popular girls in her class, his hopes plum¬
meted. He was nearing thirty; she was not yet twenty. She would
never consider giving up all her youthful prospects and going off
with an older man to some far corner of the earth. But he could not
forget her. All other girls of his acquaintance had become devoid of
charm by comparison.

As he plunged into the final months of his residency, he had
worries other than romance. He had signed up to be a missionary,
but where? The mission board had his application, yet there was
no indication that his services were wanted or needed in any place.
He might be graduated with the finest accreditation possible yet
have nowhere to go. All through the six years of his training he had
been confident of God's guidance. Doors had been opened in
remarkable ways. Now there seemed nothing but blank walls.
Why , Lord? he kept asking in his prayers. Didn't I promise You that 1
would go anywhere You wanted me to go , except —

Except. Slowly there came the realization that his submission had
been defective because of that awful word except. For the first time
he faced the fact of his reservation. He had not submitted himself
completely, and all because of that disease carried by a little tsetse
fly. Even now that he recognized his weakness, it was a struggle to
change, for he had conditioned himself to the fear for six years. But
he finally won the victory.

Lord , he prayed, I will go anywhere You want me to go. If it is to tsetse
fly country , that is where I will go. And if You want me to die with sleeping
sickness , that is the way I want to die. Once again he felt confident and
secure. He even walked straighten And his worries were ended.
Four days later a cable came from India, asking that he be assigned
there, the place of his birth.

Victor finished his two years of residency at the end of June 1923,
having received thorough training and experience in every branch
of medicine except ophthalmology. In that field, work had been
confined to clinics and lectures, with no practice in surgery or
refraction. Three and a half months in the Philadelphia Lying-in
Hospital, a charity institution, had provided practical experience in
obstetrics and gynecology, and work at the Pennsylvania Hospital
at 49th Street had given experience with the mentally afflicted. He

64

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

would even start his work in India with a small amount of capital
for surgical tools and equipment, thanks to members of the Rambo
Committee. During his summer at camp a fellow worker, Jimmy
Paterson, a law student, had come to him, smiling.

"Victor, I have just inherited $120,000. Is there something you
would like to buy and take out with you to the mission field?"

"Of course there is!" Victor's eyes had widened in unbelieving
delight. They had widened still further when his new friend had
put in his hand a check for five hundred dollars.

Surely he had everything necessary to start his work on the
mission field— except. That troublesome word came up again. To
be really effective a missionary should have a wife, he thought. For
years he had been appraising the young women of his acquaint¬
ance for suitability, and there were several who could have
qualified—any one of the Biddle girls, for instance. But he never
came to the point of proposal. Always when he tried to make a
choice the face of the girl he had met at the Christmas party—
serene, clear-eyed, radiantly youthful—interposed itself. And of
course she was out of the question, a girl not yet twenty, still in
college, popular, and probably with a coterie of male admirers. Yet
he could not help remembering that they had first met at a confer¬
ence for young people presumably committed to Christian service.

Early that summer Victor was invited to a weekend house party
by Isabelle Haines Nicholson, sister of Bob and Margaret, at her
home in New Jersey. To his surprise and delight, Louise Birch was a
member of the party. Perhaps her presence was also to his conster¬
nation, for in this festive setting, surrounded by some of her
contemporaries in age and college status, she seemed not only
more desirable but also more unattainable than ever. Still he man¬
aged to find opportunities for conversation with her, and he dis¬
covered that they had many interests and ideals in common. She
had a cousin who was a missionary in China, and she had even
been somewhat interested in missionary service herself. Her
church in Germantown was actively involved in missions of all
kinds, not merely of its own denomination. No, she had never
thought of going to any particular field, although one speaker had
so interested her in Central America that she had taken a year of
Spanish in college. And yes, she had always thought of India as a
country with a most fascinating culture.

Another incident gave him a sense of even closer affinity.
"Please, Louise," someone asked, turning to her at the table, "will
you ask a blessing?" She did so unhesitatingly, speaking with the
simple and natural joy of one who lived in close and intimate
relationship with God. His heart sang.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

65

With great bravado Victor invited her and one of her friends,
Winnie Thomas, to accompany him on a canoe trip on the nearby
Rancocas Creek, persuading one of his friends, Herman Salley, to
go along as a blind date for Winnie. She sat in the canoe with her
back to him so that he could not see her face, even the neat sweep
of her hair being obscured by a large-brimmed hat, but he was as
conscious of her nearness as he was of the summer breeze that
brushed her cheeks and rumpled his hair. He knew that, whatever
the future might bring, here was the one great love of his life. It
never entered his mind to wonder whether she could cook or even
if she would make a good missionary wife. His answer to ten years
of prayer for the best girl in the world had been answered.

The holiday came to an end, and the four of them rode back to
Germantown from Philadelphia on the trolley. At Harvey Street
Victor and Louise got out, leaving Herman to escort Winnie to her
home farther on. It began to rain, so hard that they took refuge on a
deserted porch in the first block. It was the first time they had been
alone together. Standing there in the intimacy of the secluded spot,
a curtain of pelting rain shutting them in, Victor experienced his
first doubt and uncertainty. What right had he to ask this brilliant
girl, so many years his junior, only halfway through college, to give
up all her own plans and share his life? But, surely she was the
answer to his prayers. He must ask her. Now? Or should he wait? If
she said, no, it might mean that he would never see her again. But
he would always be a "right now" person, a plunger rather than a
crawler. "Would you—" he began, and in a burst of impetuous
words he asked her to marry him and go with him to India.

When she said yes, that is, provided her mother was willing, he
could hardly contain his joy and relief. His arms went around her
and held her close, an unfamiliar action, for it was the first time he
had ever held any woman except his mother and sister. He had
never kissed a girl romantically, and he did not now. That, he
thought, should wait until they were actually engaged. When the
rain abated he escorted her to her door and, making sure no one
was watching, gave her another warm embrace. Then he went
back along Harvey Street to his trolley, flying, it seemed to him, the
sidewalk turned to air under his feet.

The news of their engagement shocked and mystified Louise's
college friends. Winnie first learned of it when she attended a
Victorious Life Conference at Stony Brook that summer, a confer¬
ence at which her father, W. H. Griffith Thomas, was one of the
speakers. Louise, her young brother, Tom, and Connie Covell,
who was later to become Tom's wife, were also at the conference.
Hearing that Louise was leaving the conference to prepare for her

66

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

wedding and departure for India, Winnie could hardly believe it.
How could she be dropping out of college, such a brilliant and
popular student, almost certain to be chosen May Queen in her
junior year? And who would have believed that day on the canoe
trip that the tall, soberly earnest, and—yes, nearly ten years older
doctor had such serious intentions? She doubted if Louise herself
had suspected. Why, he must have proposed just minutes after
leaving them on the trolley!

The summer sped by. In June Victor had been ordained as a
minister in the Church of Christ. At the time of his graduation he
was offered a research position and was also invited to become
dean of Meharry Medical School in Nashville. Was it the outspo¬
ken Dr. Sweet who recommended him, thinking perhaps that if
Victor was fool enough to go to India, he might compromise by
heading this black medical college, which was desperate to find a
dean? Of course Victor did not even consider either offer. In Au¬
gust he was made a diplomate of the National Board of Medical
Examiners.

Meanwhile he was becoming better acquainted with his future
wife and her family. He found her mother to be a gracious, kindly
person. Once she had agreed with some misgivings to their
engagement, he could enhance the pleasures of an embrace by
kissing with a clear conscience. It was a new and delightful experi¬
ence that he savored for the first time at age thirty.

Curiously enough, it would be many years before he discovered
that he was marrying into a very notable family. But Louise was not
one to boast. Only on their first furlough, eight years later, would
he learn that her great-great-grandfather, William Russell Birch,
had exhibited forty-one miniatures at the Royal Academy in
England, had been employed by Sir Joshua Reynolds to make
copies of his portraits in enamel, and in 1785 had received a medal
for excellence from the Society of Arts. Coming to the United
States in 1794, he had established his reputation as a miniature
painter and enameler and engraver, producing about sixty
enameled copies of Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Washington besides
his own original work, which included an oil portrait of Washing¬
ton for which the first president gave a sitting. Two volumes of his
engravings of scenes in Philadelphia were treasures sought after
by collectors.

William's son, Thomas Birch, coming with his father to America
at age fifteen, had also become a famous artist, best known for his
marine paintings and engravings of Philadelphia. The Birch set of
twenty-eight views of the city was so extensive in the planning that
it made all earlier efforts insignificant by comparison. The aim was

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

67

not to commemorate one event or a single building but to record
the growth of a city, its busy streets and markets, its soldiers and
citizens. Some of his famous historical paintings, like the Landing
of William Penn, The Wasp and the Frolic, and The Battle of Lake
Erie were hung in the great art museums of the country. His son,
also Thomas, had owned an auction gallery on Chestnut Street.
Louise's father, Milton Birch, had been a prosperous businessman
who dealt in wholesale paints and owned a company that man¬
ufactured pigments. The name Birch was an important part of the
very form and substance of historic Philadelphia.

But Victor knew nothing of this. Louise was not one to say,
"Victor, you're so lucky to get me because I come from a great
family!" And eight years later it would not be Louise but her
brother who would show him the impressive albums of art, take
him around the house, and point out on the walls the valuable
prints of old Philadelphia by William and Thomas Birch.

Victor found, almost to his relief, that his financee was not the
paragon of perfection he had at first believed her to be. With more
amusement than dismay, he discovered on their first Sunday in
church together that she could not sing, could not even carry a
tune. But it did not matter. Her life sang, her conversation sang,
and her whole being made music for him.

One defect, however, he was eager to correct. According to the
custom of his church she had never been baptized properly, not
having been immersed. He suggested to her that the ceremony be
performed again, and rather reluctantly she agreed, although she
was never convinced that it was necessary. She rejected the idea
that the previous rite had not been valid. He baptized her in the
Kensington Christian Church in Philadelphia.

They were married, however, in her Episcopal church in Ger¬
mantown on October 8,1923. Louise's mother had had to go with
them to get the license, for at that time a person of nineteen was
considered underage. It was a semiformal wedding, with Helen
Fraser, Louise's roommate at Wilson College, acting as bridesmaid
and Wistar Wood standing with Victor as best man. Not owning a
dress suit, Victor borrowed a cutaway from Wistar.

After a short wedding trip to New Hampshire, the couple trav¬
eled to Portland, Oregon, where Victor's parents were living, and
then in November set sail from Seattle. They arrived in the harbor
of Yokohama shortly after the severe earthquake and fire that had
practically leveled the city of Tokyo. In Shanghai they stopped for a
few days with the family of Dr. Joe McCracken, whom Victor had
known at the university and who had become head of St. John's
Medical School. At Hong Kong they again left the ship and went

68

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

upriver to Canton, where Charles Haines was on the staff of the
Christian college. There they spent Christmas. And at last they
sailed from Hong Kong to India, landing on January 12, 1924, in
Calcutta.

Victor ami Louise Rambo on their wedding day, Oct. 8, 1923. Also
pictured are Helen Fraser, Wistar Wood, and flower girl
Dorothea Nicholson.

4

I ndia again! As on the morning of January 12,1924, the ship eased
its way through the shoals and sandbanks of the Hoogly River
toward Calcutta, Victor's excitement grew. When the city came
into view, second in size only to London in the British Empire, he
felt a burst of pride that even his first glimpse of New York had not
inspired. This was his native country. Here, he knew suddenly, he
belonged. After twenty years he had come home. And when, after
the ship docked, he heard a familiar voice, reminiscent of his
childhood, he was sure of it.

"Welcome, brother!" It was John McGavran, a mission official,
who had traveled all the way from Central Provinces and boarded
the ship to greet him. He brought with him a welcoming letter from
his son Donald, Victor's boyhood playmate, who had returned to
India as a missionary only a few months before.

Proudly Victor presented his bride, glad that her introduction to
this new country should be one of such assurance and friendliness.
When they had disembarked, claimed their baggage, and gone
through customs, McGavran suggested that they go to a hotel.

"Oh!" Louise said, turning eagerly to Victor. "Do you suppose
we could go to the Lees'? I heard Mrs. Lee speak once in our
church, and I have always wished I could visit their mission here in
Calcutta." Of course, agreed McGavran. Like all missionaries, the
Lees were always prepared to welcome visitors. He made a tele¬
phone call, and presently Dr. Frank Lee, Mrs. Lee's son, came to
conduct them to the Lee Memorial Mission in central Calcutta.
Busy though he was, he had taken time to welcome the newcomers
with gracious friendliness.

Riding through the streets in a tonga, a two-wheeled, horse-
drawn vehicle with seats back to back, Victor felt the twenty years
slipping away as sights, sounds, and smells transported him into
the world of his childhood. His nostrils tingled with the mingled
odors of hot spices, jasmine blossoms, cow dung smoke, human

69

70

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

sweat, sandalwood—yes, and poverty. His feet tapped in rhythm
to the beating of distant drums, growing constantly louder and
blending with the cadences of a full band as a funeral procession
drew near and passed. How often as a child he had stood by the
roadside, gawking at just such a funeral or a wedding display.
Death or life; both were so vividly dramatized in India. All the ca¬
cophony of sounds—clatter of bullock carts; wails of street hawk¬
ers; shouts of the tonga-wala trying to force his way through a
medley of handcarts, rickshaws, loaded donkeys, bicycles, bullock
carts, ambling cows, pedestrians, and stray dogs—was like music
in his ears. He realized he had forgotten there could be so much
color in the world, or so much drabness, as he saw the reds and
yellows of saris and turbans, the blaze of sunlight on brass and
copper, and the crimsons and golds of poinsettias and bougainvil¬
leas; but also the duns and grays of dust, of ash-smeared sadhus
(Hindu ascetic holymen), of dingy, ragged loincloths, and of a man
sleeping on the sidewalk, wrapped in a worn cotton sheet.

They stayed only a few days in Calcutta, stopping at the Lee
Memorial Mission connected with the Methodist church. Mrs. Lee,
wife of the mission's founder, was there. Victor, who knew her
story, marveled at the courage and vigorous faith of this woman
who had lost six of her children in a devastating landslide in the
foothills of the Himalayas near Darjeeling yet could show visitors
their youthful pictures with smiling serenity and pride. Her calm
acceptance of such tragedy made him better able to cope with his
own bitter disappointment when John McGavran told him that his
appointment would not be to his father's old station at Damoh. Dr.
Mary McGavran, John's sister, was already working there. Instead
he was to go to Mungeli to the southeast, not far from Bilaspur, the
mission headquarters for that district, where there was much
greater need of a trained doctor. But first, like all missionaries,
Victor and Louise had to spend months in language study.

One day in Calcutta, Victor stood with head uncovered by the
grave of G. L. Wharton, the pioneer missionary who had been
responsible for his father's coming to India.

"How put into words," he wrote afterward, "the emotions of my
heart as I stood there at this grave thirty-two years after my father
and mother had sailed? A generation has passed into history, and
now I am here to take my place in the same scenes made sacred by
my predecessors." Of course he had had to come back to India and
become one in this royal line of succession. It was all part of a
pattern designed and woven by the Master Hand.

Harda, the town to which they were sent for language study,
was the westernmost station of the mission, more than eight

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

71

hundred miles by train from Calcutta, a journey of several days.
The train ride was a far cry from his parents' treks by ox cart,
horseback, and tonga, but it was a great contrast to Western means
of transportation. Victor anxiously awaited his bride's reaction to
the long days and nights of thickening dust, sanitary facilities of
the crudest and most minimal sort, a hard, narrow seat on which
one spread a bedding roll at night, and a constant rocking motion
that could have played havoc with a delicate female already three
months pregnant. But he need not have worried. Louise seemed as
at home on an Indian train as on a luxury Pullman. He was
constantly giving thanks for this helpmeet who was giving him
companionship and joy beyond all expression.

The train trip was a journey into the past, as the world of his
boyhood came to life outside the barred and screened windows—
clusters of brown huts that looked like mounds of earth but were
really some of India's more than five hundred thousand villages;
women of incredible poise bearing towering loads on heir heads;
farmers guiding the ancient wooden plow; oxen stolidly treading
grain, pulling goatskin bags from an irrigation well, or plodding
round and round an oil press; the feverish medley of an Indian
railroad station. He was delighted to find some of the hawkers'
shrill cries intelligible.

" Mumphali , mumphali, mumphali bariya /" (Peanuts, peanuts,
large and best!)

"Chai, garam chail " (Tea, hot tea!)

'Tan, bidi!" (Cigarette!)

"Santare, kele!" (Oranges, bananas!)

Arrival in Harda caused a mad scramble. Victor and Louise had
overslept. Suddenly the conductor's call of "Harda, Harda" came
to their ears, and they were not even packed to get off. The
trainmen were anxious to get them dumped off to keep the train on
schedule. Although they had slept in their clothes, their baggage
was strewn over the compartment. But with the help of Ken and
Esther Potee, the missionaries who had come to meet them, order
emerged, and they delayed the train only a few minutes.

Arrival at the mission brought even more poignant memories of
the past, for here they were greeted by Indian Christians with
half-familiar faces to whom William Eagle and Kate Rambo were
still the only beloved parents they had known.

"Papa-ji? Mama-ji?" came eager inquiries. "How are they now
and where? Will they ever come back to us? Remember me? We
used to play together in Damoh."

It was indeed a homecoming, bringing renewed awareness to
Victor of his own identity in that "royal line of succession," of

72

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

greater responsibility, too, inasmuch as the pioneer trailblazers like
his father had made the task of a second-generation missionary so
much less difficult. Barriers of tradition and prejudice had been
broken down. He had the knowledge of India that his forebears
had lacked. He was trained in preventing and healing disease.
There was a carefully planned and proved organization in which to
work.

Not long after his arrival, he had an opportunity to exhibit his
skill in medical diagnosis. Ken Potee showed him his forehead,
which was covered with a dermatitis of unknown origin. The
painful red lumps looked suspiciously like stings, but what caused
them? Ken had no idea. Victor's medical curiosity was excited but
frustrated. One day he accompanied his fellow missionary by
bicycle to the high school of which Ken was both teacher and
administrator. Arriving there, he took up the topee Ken had laid
down and on an impluse began investigating it. To his shock but
also his amusement he found the space between the topee and the
headband filled with bedbugs, one of the banes of India. They had
adjusted themselves to the strange environment and become thor¬
oughly at home. While Ken was cycling to school they would
emerge en masse, take their lunch off his forehead, and crawl back
again, repeating the process on his return to the bungalow. The
discovery aroused laughter as well as relief.

Victor begrudged the long months of language study ahead,
which were like the enforced, quiet expectancy for action before a
fencing bout. His every muscle was tensed and every nerve was
tingling, impatient for the contest to begin.

Knowledge of Hindi was a prime requisite for the missionary in
this part of India, whether for preaching the gospel, teaching a
child to read, or prescribing treatment for a stomachache. They had
been sent to Harda because there was a pandit in the town with a
good reputation as a teacher. They lived in an old mission bun¬
galow presided over by Miss Lucile Ford and Miss Mary
Thompson, an Australian missionary assigned to evangelistic
work among women in the area. To Victor the latter was his
beloved "Auntie Mary," for she had known him in childhood more
than twenty years before.

"It's like a page out of Kipling!" So Louise described the big,
high-ceilinged house with its barred, unscreened windows, its
stone floors covered with reed mattings, and its encircling porches
shaded by gorgeous poinsettias and bougainvillea vines in full
flower. She was glad for the reprieve from household management
in a country of new foods and customs, but her introduction to
culinary supervision was not ideal. The Indian cook lacked both

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

73

training and ability. Always Louise would remember the
monotony of a diet in which dal (a form of lentils) was a chie f
component, served often in soups and even in cutlets.

Language study was to Victor a whole year of marking time. The
Pandit was efficient, but the blank pages in Victor's diary for the
next months symbolized the empty tedium of tenses, plurals, and
gender endings. A few entries noted occasional respites from the
drudgery: a hunting trip ("Off at 3.30 A.M. Tonga ride. Three shots
at running deer. Potee got two. Back 7 P.M."); happiness over the
comingbaby ("Well, well! L.V. [Little Victor?] kicks. . . .Louise and
I listened to the little one's heart beat. We are so happy and thrilled
I run up and around"). But most of the entries reflected the bore¬
dom of wrestling with hateful syntax: "Study eat study play sleep.

. . . Pandit for usual time but little advance." His boyhood practice
in the language proved of meager benefit, for what he remembered
was mostly of the colloquial and gali variety. To his surprise, Louise
made far better progress than he.

But with the soaring of heat in March came reprieve, for they
were to continue language study in the hills. "March 27. Getting
packed—oh, boy!" They stopped in Bina, then traveled to Damoh,
the same sixty miles that Kate had traversed long ago through mud
and flood to save his life. When the train pulled into the station,
there were Alfred Aleppa, his wife, Tabitha, and his son Benji,
and others of the mission to meet them. It was a blessed home¬
coming.

Attending services that Sunday in the church his father had
helped build, Victor saw many of the boys who were saved in the
early days, now grown to manhood and become the backbone of
the Christian church. Here they were in Damoh, others in Harda
and all the stations, working as teachers and preachers and, yes,
artisans, able to earn their living through the industrial training
Eagle Rambo had given them. A tiny, thin, wrinkled, brown
woman who looked up at him with brimming eyes and murmured,
"Victor Baba," proved to be his old ayah who had rocked and
crooned him to sleep. When they were having dinner with Alfred
and Tabitha, Mohammed the cook appeared, beaming, and at
Victor's guilty prompting laughed delightedly over the memory of
two small boys dangling their fingers in his holy water. Tabitha,
who had been like another mother to the child Victor, gave Louise,
her "daughter-in-law," silver bracelets. "An unspeakably precious
time," Victor recorded in his diary.

"April 3. Landour. It's great to be up here. It's magnificent! I
remember the fresh sweet smell. We will be happy here."

Seven thousand feet up in the Himalayas, this military station

74

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

had long been a haven for officials and others to escape from the
115-20 degree temperatures down on the plains. The tingling air,
bracing after the oven heat in Harda, the familiar mountain paths
reminiscent of childhood roamings, the soaring horizons—all
were exhilarating. He longed to "run away to adventure" again—
and did. Looking for the luxuriant dahlias that had grown wild all
over the hills, he was disappointed to find scarcely a one. "Why?"
he asked some of the older missionaries. There had been a famine,
he was told, and the poor people had dug up the dahlia bulbs and
eaten them. Utility instead of beauty was served. At least they had
served a good purpose, perhaps saved lives, but what a loss for the
mountains.

However, the "running away" ceased abruptly, for India was
taking its toll of the foreigner. Headache, malarial fever, and chills
put him to bed for days with large doses of quinine and sulphur.
When he finally ventured out to walk in the middle of April, it was
as a sober adult of thirty, not an exuberant boy of from five to nine.
But the crisis passed, and both Victor and Louise adjusted zestfully
to the new regime, happily housed with Pastor and Mrs. J. E.
Moody and their four children in a house called "Kilmarnock."
Even language school in this invigorating melange of holiday fes¬
tivities was not unpleasant. Victor was able to give medical service,
assisting at surgery in the small mission hospital. Excitement over
the coming addition mounted. On May 3 Victor wrote, "Little
Vickie's heart beat clear and strong and 142. Head down. Louise
well."

But it was not "Little Vickie " after all. It was Helen Elizabeth,
born on July 17 without benefit of medical assistance. Returning
with a stretcher to take Louise to the hospital, Victor found Mrs.
Moody holding the head of his daughter and waiting for him to cut
the cord. All was well. The next day he wrote with fatuous satisfac¬
tion, "Helen smiled."

The summer sped by, and most of the missionaries returned to
their stations, including the Franklin sisters, Josepha, who had
given Victor his name back in 1894, and Stella, both of whom were
still his "Aunties." The Moodys, who were to be their fellow
workers in Mungeli, also left. In August, when Louise was fully
returned to health, a thrilling experience came to Victor. A Cana¬
dian and a Dane arrived in Landour and invited him to go with
them to Gangotri, the head of the Ganges. Victor gladly accepted.
With them went three carriers, one for each of the adventurers, and
a cook who accepted the trip as a means of making a pilgrimage to
the sacred spot where the great river emerges from beneath the
glacier. The monsoon weather was clearing, and as they climbed

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

75

higher and higher along the footpath, the roaring of the sacred
river in their ears day and night, the white vistas of the Himalayas
on every side, Victor's language describing the wonders ran the
gamut of "grand, grander, grandest."

Many times he gave medical service. He was amazed at the
prevalence of goiter in the travelers and villagers he examined.
Some of the people were from villages close to the river, some on
pilgrimages from far places to the south. In the course of his
investigation he was able to feel the throats of nearly all, women as
well as men and children, examining the men and children first,
then going casually to the women. Eight-five percent of the hill
people had enlarged thyroid glands, a surprising discovery. Soon
after this the government would give out iodized salt, which wiped
out this condition in large measure.

Back again to Landour, and the hateful grind of language study
recommenced. Victor and Louise passed their "orals" in Septem¬
ber and continued work with a pandit. ("He is a scamp of the first
water," recorded Victor, "But we forgive.") October found them
back in Harda for more language study before their first-year final
exams, three grueling days of them. Even then the struggle was far
from over. On October 31 Victor wrote, "Pandit again. Hot on the
trail of the language." The pandit, very alert and efficient, edu¬
cated them in more than vocabulary and syntax. Well versed in
Hindu signs and wonders, he gave them all sorts of warnings in
the shape of proverbs and old sayings. Many involved crows, that
raucous and ubiquitous noisemaker of India. "Pattern your con¬
duct not after the crow but after the swan." "By sitting in a golden
cage, no crow becomes a swan." "To see a crow mating is a sign of
sure death!"

There had to be another year of language study along with work
at their station, with more final examinations at the end, in which
Victor would receive a B grade and Louise, to his delighted
amusement, would rate an A. Although he would always be
superior in pronunciation, her natural aptitude for grammar
would make her more meticulous. In conversation or in preaching
he was soon in good command of the language, but there was
always that backlog of unusable words that kept coming to mind.
Of course the goal of perfection could never be reached. Uproari¬
ous laughter could often be raised by Indians recounting mistakes
in pronunciation made by foreigners in the use of their language.
Once, later, when Victor was ill in his bedroom, with the door ajar
into an adjoining room in which a meeting of Indians was in
progress, he was amused for twenty minutes to hear imitations of
missionaries who had made hilarious blunders in words or

76

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

phrases. Never, however, was such ridicule expressed in the pres¬
ence of the blunderer. Indians were invariably considerate of their
Western friends, as were the latter when the situation was re¬
versed.

In December the Rambos were in Mungeli, destined to be their
field of service for the next quarter century. At last, after ten years
of preparation, the commitment made in the church at Wichita was
about to be fulfilled.

Mungeli was a small town in central India, population only
about 5,000 but a center for 250,000 people in 250 surrounding
villages. The nearest railroad station was Bilaspur, thirty-one miles
to the east. It was in a district known as Chhattisgarh, the land of
the thirty-six forts, a region of broad, fertile plains nourished by
many streams flowing from great hills to the west and covered with
dense jungles of rich timber. Mungeli was on one of those twisting
little streams known as the Agar River. The mission station was on
one side of the stream, the town of Mungeli on the other.

"So good to be here," Victor recorded on December 17. "Louise
is a real housekeeper, and our two big rooms feel so homey.
Everyone is gold. And the work is waiting."

Housekeeper? Louise was hardly that. To her relief she was not
yet expected to manage a household. Two rooms and a baby were
quite enough to challenge her domestic talents at that stage
without the additional direction of a staff of Indian servants—
cook, sweeper, gardener and waterman, bearer, night watchman,
and errand boy. It was pleasant sharing the "ladies' bungalow"
with two maiden ladies, Jennie Fleming and Stella Franklin, who
were as efficient as they were kindly and tolerant of an inexperi¬
enced, young missionary wife and mother. Both had been in India
many years. Miss Fleming was in charge of women's work in the
area, often going on tour in the villages with several "Bible
women," camping in centers where there was a nucleus of Chris¬
tian families. Stella Franklin had been in Damoh when Victor was a
child, superintending the girls' orphanage during the great
famine. Here in Mungeli she was principal of a girls' school,
training students for home life in their villages. For recreation she
took trips into the villages herself, living in a tent, visiting in
homes, teaching, and preaching.

"It was your sister. Miss Josepha," Victor reminded her with a
delighted grin, "who named me. If it hadn't been for her I might be
some Tom, Dick, or Harry, and who knows how that might have
changed my character!"

Names, Victor had already discovered, were important in India,
and "Rambo" was a good label for a foreigner who craved accep-

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

77

tance. Ram was one of India's principal gods. Ram the archer,
whose arrow seldom missed. Ram-bo, the bow of Ram? V. C.
Rambo. Victor grinned again, wryly, poking fun at himself. The "V.
C." would certainly be terrific if the British government should
ever decide to give him the Victoria Cross!

But he needed no unusual label to win acceptance in Mungeli.
His skill as a doctor was sufficient recommendation, and he was
soon pressured into day-long, sometimes night-long, service. It
was hard to tell from his daily chronciles which gave him the
greater thrill, the work he had prepared for so long or the first
time baby Helen said "Da da." He plunged into his medical duties
with all the zest and vigor of a human dynamo. He could hardly
wait to get to his work each morning. The tiny hospital was across a
deep ravine from the bungalow they lived in, and there was a fence
between. He had to go around by the main road to Bilaspur, which
ran through the mission compound; his long, lanky figure, usually
at a loping stride, aroused as much curiosity as on the streets of
Alma.

He was not alone in his healing ministry. Presiding over the
hospital when he arrived was a remarkable Indian named Hira Lai.
Dr. Hira Lai, the people of the district called him, and he fulfilled all
the prerequisites of the title except that he had no medical
degree—only that of a compounder, Indian counterpart of the
Western pharmacist. About fifty, short, compact of body, bright of
eye behind steel-rimmed glasses, as deft and skillful of finger as
most graduate surgeons, for seventeen years this unusual Indian,
left alone in the hospital, had been modestly but expertly minister¬
ing to the medical needs of this huge area. He delivered babies,
held clinics, set broken bones, and treated scabies, worms, sore
eyes, malaria, dysentery, leprosy, and all the other common
ailments—yes, even performed surgery. Unschooled though he
was in medicine, he was by no means untrained.

Dr. Anna Dunn Gordon, who had received medical schooling in
India and Brussels, had come to Mungeli in 1896, wife of Evalyn
Gordon, a missionary teacher. She had started clinics, first under a
tree, then in a tent. The boy Hira Lai had offered his help and been
accepted. He had proved an apt pupil, his touch gentle when
applying dressings, his fingers nimble in folding quinine powder
papers, always careful that the sulphur and sweet oil were evenly
blended into a smooth salve for healing itch. Through the years she
had trained him until, when she left and there had been no phy¬
sician with a degree to take her place, he had gradually, not by
his own wish but by the insistence of his grateful patients, be¬
come "Dr." Hira Lai. Now, with selfless joy and thanksgiving, he

78

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

welcomed this newcomer who was destined to be his superior.

"Praise to God you have come. Doctor Sahib! How long I have
prayed!"

Hira Lai was one of the most genuine Christians Victor would
ever know. He had suffered much persecution for his faith. To keep
him from being baptized and joining the Jesus Way, his relatives
had tied him with ropes, locked him in the house, refused him
food, and finally cast him out from his family. Yet in spite of his
gentle, kindly nature he had stubbornly persisted, been baptized,
and become an effective preacher as well as medical helper, an
earnest Bible student. Once Victor was to find him without his
New Testament. When he reached in his pocket for it and could not
find it, it was as if he had discovered himself unclothed. His wife,
Sonarin, to whom he had been betrothed in childhood, had been
as courageous as he in accepting the Christian way. In fact, she had
become the first person in the area to receive baptism, on January
18,1891.

The little "doctor" had won the affection and respect not only of
his patients but also of influential persons who might well have
resented his influence. The pleasant head man of Mungeli was a
Brahmin who was said to have come to the village from
Maharashtra with few more possessions than a lota , the brass
vessel used by the Indian for his ablutions. Through skillful ma¬
nipulation of funds gradually acquired he had become rich, loan¬
ing his money until he had practically the whole area in his power.
Being astute, he recognized that Christianity, if it had its way,
would weaken his influence, perhaps make of himself a more just
and simple man. He might well have become its enemy, except for
one thing, one man.

"In this whole district," he said once to Victor, "I know of only
one really honest man. And his name is Hira Lai."

The hospital was a crude building with only four rooms, one
used for a storeroom and for dispensing medicines, two others for
examining patients and for admissions, and the fourth, at one end,
for operating. Floors were cement, but there were no ceilings, a
serious liability in the operating room, where every breeze was
likely to blow something from the cooked mud tiles of the roof
down onto the table. By using a shed and placing beds on the ve¬
randah, they could accommodate no more than ten inpatients.
Hot water came from an old cookstove in the yard. There was no
plumbing. Toilets were in a separate hut. There was no X-ray
machine. The nearest was thirty-one miles away in the govern¬
ment hospital in Bilaspur. Victor had a small, single-eyed mi-

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

79

croscope, the money for which had been raised by the Christian
Endeavor society in the Tabernacle Presbyterian church.

Victor accepted all deficiencies cheerfully, as challenges rather
than frustrations. He had not expected the sterile, electrified per¬
fection of the Philadelphia operating rooms with their multiplicity
of gadgets. Yet even here the same standards of sterility had to be
maintained. There could be no compromise. Drapes were fastened
high over the operating table to create a ceiling. The open windows
were covered with gauze, letting in less light to be sure but keeping
out the dust and flies. And for all the drawbacks of this, his new
country, there were compensations. For much of the year central
India was an ideal place to live and work. There were days and
weeks of magnificent weather, cloudless skies, dry, clean air, and
incredible beauty. Even with the mounting heat of March and
April, the parched earth and bare trees seemed to burst into more
profligate bloom—golds of the laburnum and gul mohr, crimsons
of pongas and flame of the forest, and the delicate blue mauves of
the jacaranda. Each day Victor departed to his work with anticipa¬
tion and zest, wishing he could take the "wondhap" of God's
glorious outdoors into the poor little operating room.

And poor it certainly was. His greatest frustration was the dearth
of proper medical equipment. The most conspicuous feature of the
hospital to a new doctor straight from the Pennsylvania Hospital
was the utter lack of almost everything. There were forceps to
deliver babies, and they had to be used fairly often. There were
urethral sounds, which in those prepenicillin days were in fre¬
quent use. There were minimal instruments for emergencies, such
as abdominal operations. There was chloroform, a mode of anes¬
thesia that Victor soon wished he had never seen or used.

A young man from the village of Mungeli was brought in with a
case of strangulated hernia. With the help of a trained nurse from
the Bilaspur hospital, Victor was operating. She had been used to
ether as an anesthetic, but none was available. In the middle of
surgery the patient began to struggle, and the nurse administered
more chloroform to quiet him. It resulted in cardiac arrest. These
were the years before it was common to open the chest and mas¬
sage the heart in such emergencies. All efforts to restore life failed.

The episode was doubly unfortunate because Victor had just
come, and he wanted people to have confidence in him and in the
hospital. There was not the usual response, "You could not help it.
Doctor. It was his fate." The family was educated, the patient a
much loved and capable son. It took all of Victor's facility of
explanation to clear the hospital of blame. But he did not try to clear

80

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

himself. He held himself responsible for the tragedy. He should
have been more schooled in the correct use of chloroform and
alerted the nurse to the necessity of waiting, holding off during the
slight struggle. The fact that during his whole twenty-five years of
service in Mungeli there would be no other deaths from anesthesia
in no way mitigated his self-blame. The boy's death would be
forever on his conscience.

Despite all the disadvantages and meager equipment, Victor
faced the challenge with hope and enthusiasm. There would be
modem tools and equipment. There would be well-trained Indian
helpers with medical degrees. There would even be a new pukka
(first-class) hospital. Already in the headquarters at Indianapolis,
plans were afoot for a central missions building. Meanwhile he
thanked God for one of the most able and devoted assistants any
doctor ever had.

He was amazed at the skill of this man Hira Lai who for seven¬
teen years had provided medical service to a region of 250,000
people. Much of the work was in obstetrics, and Hira Lai could not
only perform routine and abnormal deliveries, but he could also
turn a baby around as expertly as any specialist in Pennsylvania
Hospital, smoothly, gently, and with a kindly assurance that could
soothe the fears of a frightened village woman.

Attitudes were changing in India, but there was still objection by
many orthodox Hindus to having male doctors come into their
homes to treat their women. Victor was soon hearing stories of
how Hira Lai had handled such difficulties. Jenny Fleming, the
evangelist at Mungeli, had had a little training in osteopathic
healing, but she knew little about obstetrics and refused to handle
such cases herself. So she and Hira Lai had employed a bit of
subterfuge. Being called out for a difficult case in a village, she and
a helper would prepare the patient, cover her face, and send all the
relatives away; then Hira Lai would step in, deliver the baby, and
Dr. Fleming would show it to the family, or, if it was born dead,
comfort them. Doubtless this little subterfuge was known about
and accepted.

Once, however, this could not be done. Miss Fleming was un¬
able to go. There was Hira Lai in the village home on one side of the
curtain protecting the female patient from his contaminating pres¬
ence, and she was groaning on the other.

Listen, he said to the midwife on the other side who was
trying helplessly to cope with the situation. "Put your ear down
and listen. Can you hear the baby's heart beating?" Soon she
popped her head out from behind the curtain. "Yes, I can hear it.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

81

.V

Dr. Hira Lai, Victor's uneducated but dedicated and skillful co-worker in
Mungeli, talks to one of his patients.

tick, tick. I put my ear to the patient's ear, and I could hear tick
tick!"

Hira Lai loved to tell this story with gusto and uproarious laugh-
ter.

His skills were by no means confined to obstetrics. He had
learned to handle emergencies so expeditiously that the govern¬
ment had often sent accident cases to this tiny hospital many miles
from a railroad. Although he had sent most major surgery cases to
Bilaspur by tonga or bullock cart, he had often in emergencies
handled such surgery successfully himself. And—Victor discov¬
ered to his utter astonishment—he had performed hundreds of
operations for cataract.

It had started ten years ago, soon after Dr. Gordon left. A patient
came to him, not a poor man, but the head man of his village. "Dr.
Hira Lai," he said, "this cataract of mine. I want you to take it out."

"Oh, no!" protested Hira Lai. "I am not a professional doctor, a
surgeon. In fact. I'm nobody much. You must go to Bilaspur where
there is a government hospital and a qualified surgeon."

"No," said the man firmly. "I won't go to the civil surgeon. Dr.
Hira Lai, I'd rather become blind after you operate than to have the
best surgery by anybody else. I'll stay blind if you don't operate."

82

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

And what could the little doctor do? He had a few instruments
left by his teacher, a fixation forceps, a von Graefe knife, an iris
forceps, a speculum, something to keep the eye open, and a
strabismus hook to express the cataract. He had often seen Dr.
Gordon perform the operation. He did it successfully, and after
that he operated on demand, for blindness was one of the terrible
scourges of India, more tragic even than such killing diseases as
cholera, smallpox, and plague. Blindness was a living death. It
meant isolation, idleness, hopelessness, and for many, starvation
or a lifetime of begging. Without sight the farmer could not plow or
sow or harvest. The potter could not turn his wheel. The leather
worker, the seamster, and the worker in brass or copper were
helpless to ply their trades. Even the sweeper, lowest of outcastes,
must have eyes to wield his short broom or carry away the night
soil to the fields. A child—and children, even babies, were more
readily victims of cataract in this land of disease, glaring sun, and
malnutrition—could anticipate only a lifetime of groping down
lanes, grasping a stick held in the hand of a guide.

Operations on cataract were no new development in India. They
were older than the Taj Mahal, than the Kutab Minar, even than the
stone carvings at Ellora and Ajanta dating from far before the
Christian era. For thousands of years the "coucher" had traveled
over India, placing his mat by the roadside and laying out his tools.
The blind would come flocking. With a handmade keratome,
perhaps in recent times a broken razor blade honed to a sharp
point, he would make an incision in the cornea at the limbus. Into
this opening he would thrust a triangular probe and push the
hardened lens to one side, back into the vitreous. Because the
cornea is somewhat insensitive the operation would cause little
pain. The immediate result might well seem a miracle, for the
patient would at once gain fair vision. But much too often various
reactions would soon set in without the proper sterilization, and
great agony as well as blindness would often result. One survey
made in Madras estimated that within three years after couching,
97 percent of patients had lost the use of the eye. The coucher was
incredibly skillful, and the technique would be passed on from one
generation to the next. He would travel alone and move constantly,
going from one village, one city to another, and because he found
cataracts everywhere he went, he invariably prospered. The prac¬
tice would later be outlawed by the Indian government, but so
great was the need and so popular were the couchers that the law
would be almost impossible to enforce.

For seventeen years Hira Lai had been the loved and respected

83

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

head of the hospital. Now, willingly, humbly, and thankfully, he
yielded his place to the newcomer.

"You, Sahib, are the doctor," he insisted. "I am here only to be
your poor but willing helper."

Victor assumed all responsibility for surgery but attempted no
cataract operations, in which he had had no practical experience.
Anyway, it was not the "cataract season," the time of year in the
Indian calendar considered favorable for such surgery. But there
were many emergencies. Often Victor would take Hira Lai's ad¬
vice, even persuade him occasionally to go ahead with some part of
the surgery. And always he was amazed at the man's skill. He
wished he could have known Dr. Gordon, the woman who had
recognized such talent and developed it so expertly. They worked
together in perfect rapport. They agreed that healing was a
spiritual business, and there was always prayer both before and
after each operation, in fact accompanying every meeting with a
patient. The doctor, each believed, was merely the instrument
through whom God worked. Moreover, prayer, which the patient
could understand, was one of the most effective means of bearing
witness to the healing and saving power of the Christian gospel.

Victor found no lack of variety in his surgical cases. Many in¬
volved childbirth emergencies, such as transverse presentations,
breaches, infection, and other complications resulting from the
delivery service of some ignorant barber's wife, the traditional
midwife of India. Injuries resulting from accidents were common,
sometimes requiring amputations following neglect or gangrenous
infection caused often by too-tight application of splints by the
"fracture man" of a village. Patients came from all directions and in
all kinds of conveyances—ox carts, tongas, and rickshaws. A child
or occasionally an adult might be carried on a charpoi (string cot),
reminding one of the man sick with palsy brought to Jesus on his
bed. A baby or cripple might lie or sit in a basket poised on a
mother's or wife's head.

Victor never clashed wills or words with the kindly and self-
effacing Hira Lai, but that was not the case with some of his fellow
missionaries on the compound. He was independent and outspo¬
ken. Once when a meeting was being held in the "Big Bungalow"
occupied by Mr. Benlehr and his family, a hasty remark of Victor's
aroused the other missionary's ire, and there was too warm an
exchange. Victor decided it was time to leave for the hospital, but
he had no sooner arrived than Mr. Benlehr followed, doubtless to
continue the argument. Fortunately it was Victor's prayer time
and, having gathered his workers together, he had dropped to his

84

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

knees and begun to pray aloud. His fellow missionary, unable to
interrupt, returned to the meeting in a quieter mood.

"Well," he told the others with shamefaced humor, "Victor hit
me—over God's shoulder."

Part of Benlehr's work was direction of a small leprosarium
about a furlong from the hospital, and Victor went there for medi¬
cal service. It was there that an event occurred that was to pro¬
foundly change his life. Not long after his arrival, most of the
leprosy (also known as Hansen's disease) patients were moved to a
new center at Jarhagaon, where Benlehr continued to direct the
work, commuting from Mungeli. But a couple of the pukka shel¬
ters used as dormitories were left on the old site, still occupied by
one or two leprosy patients. One day a man came to the hospital
from this little colony, his wife leading him, for he was blind. Like
many sufferers from Hansen's disease, he had been left without
normal fingers and toes by injuries resulting from lack of sensitiv¬
ity in his hands and feet; but he could hold a cane clumsily in one
hand. Without the tender ministrations of his faithful wife, he
would have been utterly helpless. There was no trace of leprosy
stigmata on his face, eyes, or eyelids, but examination showed that
he had cataracts in both eyes. When the man had been treated for
some minor ailment and the two had gone back to the old leprosy
building for the night, Hira Lai turned eagerly to Victor.

"He could be made to see, Doctor-ji. You must remove his
cataract."

"I?" Victor was startled. "But—you're the one who does
cataracts, Hira Lai. You've done hundreds of them. I've never done
one."

"You are the surgeon, Doctor-ji," said the other simply."I am just
your poor assistant. I did cataracts, yes, but only because there was
no real doctor. Now you are here."

For the first time since starting his work in Mungeli, Victor felt
uncertain, inadequate. Here was Hira Lai, who had performed
hundreds of the operations with apparent success. Here was him¬
self, the trained surgeon, who had never done one. Why, Victor
asked himself, had he not realized that cataracts were endemic to
India, so that he could have acquired more practical experience in
ophthalmology in Pennsylvania Hospital? But here was a chal¬
lenge, and he was not one to avoid confrontations, whether in a
fencing bout, mission office, or surgery. A general surgeon in India
who could not operate on cataracts was as out of character as a
gynecologist who could not deliver babies.

"Achchha, good," he said decisively to Hira Lai. "We will do it, of
course." And, knowing Hira Lai's obstinacy and humility in the

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

85

presence of the educated surgeon, he feared it was an editorial
"we."

Not "to your tents, O Israel," but "to your surgery books, O
Victor!" Bless his friends of the Rambo Committee who had
provided him with the wherewithal for a somewhat basic library.
With quiet concentration he studied everything his books could tell
him about early and simple operations on eyes and the technique
of cataract surgery. Much was review, for his classes in anatomy
and theory in ophthalmology had been thorough, but they could
not substitute for experience. Thanks to Jimmy Paterson and
others of the committee he had his tools, the best to be obtained,
from Grieshaber of Switzerland.

Although the patient was not infective, there still would have
been prejudice about admitting him to the hospital. This was in the
day when even doctors did not yet understand that Hansen's
disease is less communicable than tuberculosis and usually infec¬
tive only after repeated and long, continued contacts. The opera¬
tion must be done at the old leprosarium, which made the proceed¬
ing far more complicated. As they assembled instruments, medi¬
cines, bandages, vessels for boiling water, and a portable operating
table, Hira Lai continued to give vital encouragement.

"You have the good hand, Doctor-ji. I have seen you working
with tissues, and I know. Besides, God will help you."

With many misgivings but with outward confidence, Victor set
out on an expedition that was to change the whole course and
motivation of his life.

Even when they had arrived at their destination, he felt like an
actor assailed with stage fright. "You do it this first time," Hira Lai,
he urged, "and let me watch you."

"No, Doctor Sahib. You are the surgeon. You can do it."

Yes, of course he could do it. "Achchha! But stand by me, Hira
Lai."

It was the first time he had been called on to operate under crude
village conditions, the first of many thousands. The two little
dormitories remaining of the leprosarium were almost bare of
furnishings. Like many Indian villagers, the occupants slept on
floor mats or string cots, ate their meals while squatting on the floor
or porch, used the surrounding fields for toilet facilities, and
brought water from the river forty feet below a high bank for
cooking and drinking.

The operating table was set up on the little porch between the
two rooms of the little house, and the patient was transferred to it
from his cot. Boiled water had been brought from the hospital. The
instruments, already sterilized, were opened from their towel re-

86

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

ceptacles. The area for surgery was given a thorough wash with
hospital-boiled water, and a solution of potassium permanganate
and Mercurochrome for local application was dropped into the
conjunctival sac of the eye to be operated on. The iris responded
well to light, and there in view was the white cataract obstructing
the vision. Victor asked Hira Lai to scrub with him, but the Indian
was reluctant. This must be Victor's surgery and his alone. A
crystal of cocaine was dropped into the eye and allowed to desen¬
sitize the area.

Victor offered prayer, more fervent than usual. If ever he had
needed the touch of the Master Physician, it was now. He assem¬
bled his instruments, a spring speculum, a von Graefe knife, an
iridectomy forceps, an iris scissors, an iris repositor, a fixation
forceps, a strabismus hook, and a vectis (in case the cataract just
"disappeared" into the eye globe and had to be fished out). He had
an ordinary flashlight, not very powerful but sufficient to focus its
light. With the loupe lens attached to his glasses, he tested his
vision and found it good. He knew the procedure backward and
forward, not from experience but from study. Dr. de Schweinitz's
lectures had been thorough, and his book on eye surgery was the
standard textbook. He took the von Graefe cataract knife in his
hand, a small, narrow, millimeter-and-a-half blade, 30 millimeters
long, blade blunted at the back. It felt very much at home against
the side of his middle finger, its handle seeming an extension of his
own hand.

"Where's your point?" The words came to his mind, as sharp
and clear as if his fencing master, Terrone, had spoken them. His
whole life, Victor sensed, had been preparation for a moment like
this, even the foils with their demand for precise coordination and
steel-fine yet perfectly controlled tension.

He proceeded with ease and confidence, using the "Smith
method" of operation. Picturing the eye as the face of a clock, he
made an incision from nine o'clock to three. Introducing the iris
forceps from the twelve o'clock position, he performed a complete
iridectomy. With a strabismus hook he exerted pressure at six
o'clock, holding the eye spoon to keep the lips of the wound
together while the zonule of the lens was broken, the wound
opened, and the lower edge of the lens presented at the wound.

Then, lo and behold, he saw something marvelous and challeng¬
ing. There inside the newly stretched pupil was the gray, opaque
lens coming out as the hundreds of extremely tiny "guy ropes"
called zonules broke, liberating the lens. The cataract was now out
and discarded. With an iris repositor he realigned the pupil and the
edges of the opening in the upper iris (called the coloboma of the

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

87

complete iridectomy). As he withdrew the iris repositor from the
inside of the eye, the lips of the wound fell together, allowing
complete closure. Aqueous, the water of the anterior chamber,
immediately started to fill out the chamber. The pupil was abso¬
lutely clear, the anterior chamber partially filled, the cornea clear. It
was like recreating something infinitely beautiful. He removed the
speculum.

"Don't squeeze your eye," he admonished the patient. Both
eyes were covered with pads and a bandage was lightly applied.
Both arms were bound. Under their direction the man's wife,
patient, competent, and wonderfully loyal, took over his care.

Victor and Hira Lai trudged back to the hospital, praying, com¬
forting and encouraging each other, joyful and hopeful.

" Achchha /" exclaimed Hira Lai with satisfaction. "It was good,
Doctor-ji. I knew you could do it."

Good, yes. But would the patient be able to see? And although
every sanitary precaution had been taken, just as in the hospital,
could there be the possibility of infection? Would the wife make
sure that he was kept perfectly quiet? Had he been foolhardy in
performing an operation not only without experience but under
conditions that would have shocked his professors?

The next day Victor found his patient comfortable and coopera¬
tive. Every other day he returned to dress the eye. It healed
perfectly. On the eighth day he removed the bandages for the last
time. He led the man out of the house into the sunlight and waited
anxiously, with an expectation that was almost painful. Of course
his vision could not be perfect, but surely. . . .

"Tell me, brother," he demanded as the man made no sound,
only turning his head from side to side. "Can you see?"

" Ji-han , yes!" The patient raised his hands to his breast, palm to
palm, in the Indian form of greeting or worship. He dropped to his
knees. " Achchha , it is good!" Words of gratitude burst from his lips.
"Sukriya, sukriya, Doctor Sahib!"

"Don't thank me, brother." Victor fell on his knees beside him.
"It's the God, Father of our Lord Jesus, who first gave you sight
and now has given it to you again. Let us both thank Him."

The man would have only limited vision, of course, and with
only one eye for now. There was no thought at that time of provid¬
ing him with glasses. But he could see enough to get around with
ease. No longer need his wife wait on him. He could see to take
food to his mouth. He could make his way along the village lanes
without being led. He could go down the high bank to the river to
draw water. Although his fingers were uneven stumps, he could
stretch out his palm and beg.

88

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Victor walked back to the hospital. There was only one other
time when he had felt like this, humbled to the depths, exalted
beyond the heights, and that was the afternoon Louise had prom¬
ised to marry him. Then he had seemed to move on air, his feet not
touching the earth. Now he moved softly, as if walking on holy
ground. Words suddenly gained fresh meaning:

Jesus , son of David, have mercy on me !. . .

What do you want Me to do for you?

Master, let me receive my sight !. . .

Whereas I was blmd, now 1 can see! (Mark 10:47 , 51; John 9:25)

5

i-oh! Have you heard? The Doctor Sahib at Mungeli is giving

/i new eyes! He can make the blind to see!"

The news spread by that news-spreading method common to
the Indian countryside, word of mouth. People began coming for
cataract operations, as they had done in former days to Hira Lai,
but in greater numbers as their confidence grew in the new foreign
doctor. Did he not perform wonders heretofore impossible this
side of the great cities? No longer need you go the hazardous miles
by ox cart to have a terrible knot untied in your bowels, a stone
enticed by magic from your body, or a leg or arm that had become
black and swollen taken away. Now, it was discovered, he could
also give the blind new eyes.

It did not happen all at once. After the first operation there was
an interim when Victor did not perform any cataract surgery, for
his precious knife had touched some dulling substance, and he had
sent it away to Switzerland for sharpening. But one by one the
patients came in increasing numbers, and as his skill improved he
experienced a delight in the achievement, a delight that no other
act of surgery was able to give. He was like an artist discovering an
ideal medium of creativity. Thanks to his fencing experience and
natural coordination, he had the touch. "Where's your point?" He
knew exactly where, and the result was cleanness of cut, swiftness,
neatness, and precision; if not perfection, it was at least a proce¬
dure of which an amateur need not be ashamed.

"You are a master workman, Doctor-ji," said Hira Lai humbly
after the prayer of thanksgiving following one operation. "It is as if
our Lord Jesus came again on earth and went about our land,
making the blind to see."

Victor made a deprecating gesture. " Nahin , no, Hira Lai, we both
know I'm no worker of miracles. And I still have much to learn. But
I'm glad if you think I can do a decent job."

For some time it was the technique of his new skills that

89

90

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

enthralled him, the beauty of neat, delicate incisions, opaqueness
turning to clearness, the thrill of watching blindness become sight,
even though dim and blurred it must be without glasses. Then one
day he was walking on a path outside town toward a nearby
village. In a field beside the path a man was plowing. Victor stood
and watched him, admiring the straight furrow, always intrigued
by the crude yet marvelous simplicity of an Indian plow with its
two curved pieces of babul wood and its little tip of iron, as ancient
as the pyramids, perhaps the same sort the boy Jesus had helped
Joseph fashion in the carpenter shop of Nazareth. The man looked
up and noticed him. Victor saw his face light with a glow of
recognition.

''Doctor Sahib!" he cried joyfully, stumbling across the field and
lifting soil-stained hands palm to palm in the age-old greeting of

namaste.

Victor studied the man's features, trying to place him, coming
finally to the pupils, one colorless and dull, the other narrowed,
squinting, but bright with intelligent recognition. He nodded,
smiling, as he returning the salutation. Of course. He knew the
man, a patient he had operated on for cataract some weeks before,
who, even with his limited vision—only one eye operated on and
no cataract glasses — had been first to recognize the other man,
even across the neatly plowed furrows.

"Achchha, brother, good! Do you remember what we told you? It
was the God of our Lord Jesus who gave you back your sight. Let
us thank Him again, shall we?" Dropping to his knees on the path,
Victor made a fervent prayer. As he went on his way, he was
acutely aware of the blessings of sight, colors and shapes he had
been taking for granted: the blue of the sky; the fine, mimosalike
fronds of a nim tree; the flamboyant red orange of a flame of the
forest tree in blossom; even the brownness of the path under his
feet.

Here's a man who was blind , he thought, helpless , and now he is
plowing, earning a living for himself and his family. It took only five
minutes, no more. A little surgery , a bandage on his eyes, a few weeks of
rest, and nozv he's out plowing, doing a good job. Suppose he had always
remained blind!

From that day on he became acutely conscious of the prevalence
of blindness. Of course he had been aware of it before, the sight of
people, many of them children, feeling their way, groping down
neem-shaded lanes, begging, grasping a stick held by a guide,
standing against a wall and staring sightless at the sun. He had
pitied them and forgotten. Now it was as if he saw them for the first
time, dismayed by their numbers. The casual sympathy he had

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

91

once felt became empathy, a sense of actual participation in their
hopelessness.

"An Indian villager would rather die than be blind," Hira Lai
observed once, "yet of course it is against his whole culture and
religion to commit suicide."

It was not as though the blind villager received no care. He
would have the devoted help of his family as long as he lived. But
his blindness would put them in economic jeopardy, for only by
working together could the family exist and pay the exorbitant
interest on the debt most villagers owed to the moneylenders.

True, there were some who with rare courage and ingenuity
seemed to have conquered their handicap, like Dukhua, who
supplied the family with eggs, fruits, and vegetables. About
twenty-five when they arrived in Mungeli, he had won his wife
without benefit of sight, fathered two clever, attractive children,
and kept them fed and growing by his own labor. His wife worked
also, accepting any tasks available, such as carrying earth, thatch,
and tiles for building village huts. Both were always cheerful,
never complaining. Dukhua would take his cane, beat out a path
through the fields and groves and over the built-up dams of rice
paddies, find places where eggs or other produce could be secured
cheaply, and bring them in to Mungeli for sale. If there was a letter
to be delivered, perhaps to Fosterpur, a smaller mission station
some miles away, Victor would call Dukhua. To him night meant
nothing. It was as easy to travel by dark as by daylight. One could
hear his stick as he came back through the dark, faithful and
strong. He was a loyal Christian. Often he would find the sick in
some distant village and bring them in, sometimes in a family
procession, his stick grasped by the patient or one of his atten¬
dants.

"These people are in need," he would say simply. "Give them
courage, give them hope, praise the Lord!"

But even such faith and courage would not always prevail.
Dukhua lived in a little group of huts some distance from the
hospital. To reach his home from Mungeli he had to cross a bridge
over a stream, in the dry season a mere trickle but in the monsoons
a raging torrent. On one trip in later years he would have to cross
over that causeway when the stream was in flood. Robbers knew
that he had been taking goods to Mungeli and was carrying money.
Unable to see, he could not defend himself. They took his money,
pushed him off the bridge, and let him drown.

One day Victor was walking along a path and saw a blind man
coming toward him. Unwittingly the man placed his bare foot on a
dump of thorns. Stooping to remove the thorns from his foot, he

92

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

put down the other, and that too was pierced with thorns. To
remove them he sat down on the ground, and once more he landed
in the thorns. Before hastening forward to help him, Victor
watched him, feeling in his own feet the sharp thrusts of pain, in
his own body the despair of the tortured figure crouched on the
ground. In that moment he knew what he must do.

Like other decisions made swiftly but with a sense of divine
leading—to pledge himself as a missionary, to become a doctor—
this one was eventually to change the whole direction and purpose
of his life. It was a commitment that was to possess him, mind,
soul, and body, from that day forward. To implement it he would
have liked to leave India at once for Philadelphia, enroll in the
famous Wills Eye Hospital with its free clinics, and study for one
year, two, or whatever time was necessary to become a specialist in
ophthalmology. It was impossible, of course, at present, but the
purpose was firm and must eventually find fulfillment. Meanwhile
he must study his books and improve his skills as much as possible
through his rapidly growing experience.

The burden of work became constantly heavier as the Doctor
Sahib's reputation for successful surgery, especially with cataracts,
brought more and more patients from the town and the surround¬
ing 250 villages. During this first term of over six years Victor had
no nurse, and often he himself was nurse, anesthetist, diagnosti¬
cian, records keeper, as well as medical director and surgeon. On
one occasion he nursed a patient until two in the morning, leaving
only the night watchman in charge, then came on duty again at
seven. His only assistants were Hira Lai and the two pharmacists,
Bansi Lai and Ahsan Ali. There were clinics every weekday, atten¬
dance running anywhere between fifty and eighty. Beds were
usually full, with patients often lying on mats, occasionally under
the beds, filling every available space on floors and verandahs.

Meanwhile during those first years the family was adjusting
with increasing ease to the routine of life in the strange environ¬
ment. They went to Landour again in the summer of 1925 for more
language study. In the fall of that year they were able to have a
home of their own. Mr. Benlehr, who had been in charge of the
leprosarium, had moved to another station in Takhatpur on the
Bilaspur road thirteen miles from Mungeli. The Benlehrs had
occupied what was called Big Bungalow, the first one built back in
the 1880s. Now MrjVloody, the district evangelist, moved into this
house with his family, leaving Bungalow Number 2 available for
the Rambos. It was a much better location, across the ravine and
not far from the hospital. From this time on it would be known as
the "Doctor's Bungalow."

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

93

The new home was fairly large, with whitewashed plaster walls.
One big room stretched from the front to the back of the house;
they divided it into living and dining rooms. There were two large
bedrooms on the left, one leading off from each section. At the
right, off the living room, was a small bedroom. Behind it, reached
by a door from the dining room, were a pantry and a storeroom,
with a short passage leading to the kitchen and other storerooms.
Cement floors were covered by mattings. As in most mission
bungalows of the period, ceilings were high, perhaps twenty feet.
Each of the large bedrooms had its own dressing room and bath,
the latter a cement cubicle with shelves for water jars, a crude
toilet, and a drained section for the usual "pour bath." There were
porches back and front.

For the first time Louise was her own household manager. It was
not an easy transition but rather a time of adjustment, learning to
superintend a group of servants, taking care of one child with
another soon to be on the way—a whole new manner of life. There
was almost no furniture—beds, a dining table, chairs—a few
items bought secondhand from families in the mission who were
going home on furlough or retirement. But gradually other articles
were added, many ordered from the mission carpenter shop in
Damoh. There was of course no plumbing in the house when they
moved in, but after a few years there would be cement tubs, wash
basins, and flush toilets (flushed with a bucket). Still later a big
tank would be set up outside, to be filled by the gardener carrying
buckets of water from the well in the garden, thus providing
"running water."

The Mungeli bazaar was limited in merchandise, carrying
brassware, pottery, vegetables, fruits, cotton saris, and dhotis, but
few things considered necessities by Westerners. For other things
one had to go to Bilaspur. Miss Fleming, as well as Mr. Moody, had
a car, and both of them were kind about taking store lists or
passengers when they went to the city. In fact, Miss Fleming and
Miss Franklin were more than kind. With sacrificial generosity they
turned over to the Rambos their servant Dukhua, whom they had
trained in cooking. Louise found a woman to help with the house¬
work and an ayah, Panchobai, who was invaluable in caring for
Helen.

"This is the way it has to be," she told herself cheerfully, and
little by little, like Kate before her, she learned the necessary skills
of household management in this strange environment. These
included making sure the drinking water was boiled and the green
vegetables, even from their own garden, were thoroughly treated
to prevent dysentery; struggling for the cleanest possible wash

94

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

with the least possible damage to the clothes; testing the milk
brought by the cowherd to make certain he had not slipped in a
measure of water; planning meals from the limited ingredients the
cook was able to procure in the bazaar; playing the gracious hostess
to missionaries and other visitors whose presence often turned the
bungalow into a hotel; and above all providing a serene, well-
ordered retreat for a human dynamo whose energies were in¬
exhaustible and whose goings and comings were as unpredictable
as the monsoons.

Summer vacations offered the chief departures from routine.
With the soaring of heat in April, most missionary wives and
children left for the hills. In 1926 Louise and Helen went with
Esther Potee, whom she had known intimately in Harda, and her
two children, Carol and Gale, to Murree, close to the border of
Kashmir. Then when Ken Potee arrived in early May they pro¬
ceeded with him by car to Kashmir, where they lived in tents in
Nasimbagh. After his six weeks of vacation Ken returned to Harda,
leaving his wife and two children to remain until August. It was
Louise's first long separation from Victor, and the four months,
harbingers of many more such summers to come, seemed an
eternity. Even the beauties of Kashmir, a heaven of mountains,
lakes, flowers, and coolness, could not atone for loneliness. He
arrived finally in August, looking even leaner and lankier but still
buoyant after his long bout with the 110 degree heat of the plains.
In September they left by car for Rawalpindi, and from there they
took the train for Bilaspur by way of Katni.

Floods or droughts! India, it seemed, was a land of excesses.
Thirty years before, Kate had found it so, one year fording the
swollen streams to save the life of her baby, another doling gruel to
save the lives of other women's babies who were dying because of
famine. Times had not changed. At Katni they learned that floods
had carried away a railroad bridge between there and Bilaspur.
What were they to do? They could take a detour, much longer, via
Jubbulpore and Nagpur, or take a chance that they could get across
the "break."

"They hope to put mail across," they were told, "and there
might be a train waiting on the other side." Hope. Might. They
decided to take the chance.

At the river there was a raft on pontoons, hauled across by a
rope. They were put aboard along with the mail and their luggage.
just so, thought Louise, but with far greater hardship and danger, Kate
had journeyed across swollen rivers to save her child. Eight months
pregnant with another of her own, she felt a new and peculiar
affinity with this woman who had encountered so-much-greater

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

95

obstacles. On the other side they did find a train waiting. They
arrived in Bilaspur that evening but found no one waiting, for
because of the broken bridge they were not expected. Their
missionary friends the Sauns found them well settled in their
house when they returned from a prayer meeting. It was several
days before they were able to reach Mungeli.

A month later they were again in Bilaspur, Helen in the care of
Mrs. Saun, Louise in the Jackson Memorial Hospital, where on
October 31 her second child was born. This time it was "Little
Victor." Victor Birch he was named, usually to be called Birch. Dr.
Hope Nichoson, whom Victor regarded as "one of the finest medi¬
cal missionaries and surgeons and teachers that ever went out to
serve the Lord as Jesus did," was the attending doctor. It was well
that Victor had insisted on the superior facilities of the Bilaspur
hospital, for Birch presented problems soon after his birth. "It was
Dr. Nichoson's constant care and attention," Victor admitted later
with fervent gratitude, "that saved our son's life."

As for the exceptional woman he had married and who at age
twenty-two had mothered two children, obtained higher marks in
Hindi than he to whom it had been almost a native language,
adjusted herself with poise and efficiency to the customs of a
strange land, and endeared herself to all with whom she came in
contact, Victor would always be at a loss to express his wonder and
gratitude. But he would try.

"Such a woman," he was to write years later, "never was nor will
be again. In gracious thoughtfulness supreme with good sense,
and superb loyalty to the human race individually and collectively,
yet above the host in humility, unbowed except to God!"

It was some months later in this same mission hospital in Bilas¬
pur that Victor officiated at another birth that presented a new
challenge of surgery. In Dr. Hope Nichoson's absence he had been
called to attend some of the more urgent cases. When engaged in
the delivery of the baby of Mrs. Ali, a nurse and teacher and the
wife of the hospital driver, he found himself facing a new kind of
surgery. There was not enough room for the baby to come through,
even if one attempted to turn the fetus around and deliver it by
podalic version, feet first. A Caesarean section was called for, an
operation he had never performed alone.

He knew the answer to that. To your books again, O Victor!
Studying the process carefully, he lined up the "what to do's" and
the "what not to do's." Then, without excitement, as in his first
cataract operation, he proceeded, making a long incision, opening
the uterus, removing the baby, and sewing up with larger needles,
bringing the child, Mary Ali, into the world. He felt no triumph. It

96

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

was just another new job to be done. There were no cheers, no
firecrackers. The real triumph would come twenty years later
when he was to teach Mary Ali, his first Caesarean baby, to handle
ophthalmology along with her general surgery.

As the workload increased in Mungeli, Victor was constantly
exploring possibilities for the hospital's expansion. More doctors
were desperately needed, but medical missionaries, at least those
recruited by his own board, were deplorably few. Yet—why neces¬
sarily missionaries? Indians were being trained for medicine all the
time right there in India in the medical schools of the universities,
men in the Christian Medical School at Miraj and women in Dr. Ida
Scudder's Christian Medical School in Vellore and at the similar
institution at Ludhiana. Why shouldn't his own mission be taking
advantage of such opportunities?

"We should be training our young Indians to be doctors," he said
to Hira Lai. "Do you know any good prospects?"

Hira Lai's face lighted. He suggested that Victor write to W. E.
Gordon, who was the superintendent of mission schools in Jhansi
and who might know of young men fitted for such study. Victor did
so. Did Mr. Gordon have any teachers or students whom he
considered promising material for medical study? Mr. Gordon
recommended two young men. In fact, he had once asked these
two if they would be interested in studying medicine, and they had
been eager to. Both had had training in science and mathematics
that should qualify them for entrance into the Presbyterian mission
medical school at Miraj.

One of the young men was Prabhu Dayal Sukhnandan, the son
of an Indian of the weaver caste who had come to the Mungeli
mission at age twelve nearly dead from starvation in the days of
famine, had grown up in the boys' home, and later had been sent
to school. With other Christians he and his family had been settled
in Pendrideh, a village established by the mission nine miles from
Mungeli, a place where families despoiled by the famine could
once more own land and become independent.

The other young man was Philip James. One day years before,
Hira Lai, passing along the road with the Indian pastor of Mungeli,
blind Gulali, had seen a sick man lying by the roadside. "Padri-ji,
he had said, "there is a man at the side of the road who looks very
sick."

"Is he alone?"

"No. There's a little boy, perhaps eight years old, with him."

"What seems to be the matter with the man?"

"He is breathing very fast and with difficulty."

"Of course we must help him."

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

97

They had taken the two back to the mission, and Dr. Gordon had
given the man medicine for his asthma and a room they could stay
in as long as they wished. When little Jaita grew up and became a
Christian, he took the surname of James and married Rambha Bai,
a lovely girl from the Bilaspur girls' boarding home. Their first son
was named Philip. With Prabhu Dayal Sukhnandan, the boy had
gone two years to college in Allahabad.

Victor wasted no time writing to Miraj. The Presbyterian medical
school for men took students without college degrees and, al¬
though it was not qualified to award the M.B.B.S. (Bachelor of
Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) degree, it gave a licentiate after
four years of medicine plus one of internship, training almost
comparable to that of a university. Yes, was the reply. The school
would take recommended students if the mission could provide
scholarships.

Immediately Victor consulted Mr. Alexander, the mission secre¬
tary representing the United Christian Mission Society. He pre¬
sented a glowing picture of the need for more doctors and the
possibilities of training Indian Christians for service to their own
people.

"But," the secretary said regretfully, "we don't give scholar¬
ships."

All Victor's arguments were of no avail. He was battering his
head against the concrete walls of rules and precedent. For the first
time he understood how his father had felt, seeing his dream
relentlessly destroyed by those of narrower vision. History was
repeating itself. He and his father, he realized, were of the same
tough and bucking breed, both destined to be innovators and likely
to be unpopular with mission agency bureaucrats. But either times
had changed or he, Victor, possessed a tougher quality of resis¬
tance than Eagle. Even their names were significant. An eagle
soared, but a victor fought. He had a good idea, and he meant to
carry it out.

How ? The word itself was suggestive, a reminder of the man who
had made possible a victory over far-more-formidable odds.
Without Dana How and the other members of the Rambo Commit¬
tee, he himself could not have become a doctor. Well, they were
still there, still prayerful supporters of him and his work. Now he
needed more than prayer. He wrote a letter to James G. Biddle,
who, because of a moment's "wondhap," believed that he owed
the life of a beloved daughter to Victor Rambo.

"Please help me." The letter was frankly begging. It went on to
tell of the two young men, the great need, and the opportunity for
rewarding spiritual investment. The reply came back immediately.

98

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

with a check for $100 and a promise to tell other friends of the need.

Victor was jubilant. At that time $100 meant 400 rupees, enough
to give the boys a good start. He sent them to Miraj, confident that
a way would be found to keep them there. Four or five years were a
long time to wait for them, and if there was one quality Victor
lacked it was patience. But with Hira Lai as his assistant and
enough strength and volition to act at times as nurse, surgeon, lab
technician, records secretary, as well as frequent preacher and
evangelist, on duty around the clock, he had no time for frustration
or self-pity.

Victor's reputation as an eye surgeon grew steadily. It was
broadcast all over the countryside, and people came by twos, by
threes and fours, sometimes in a whole group. In an ordinary week
there might be sixty operations, many of them for cataract.

Despite his nearly one-hundred-percent success with cataract
surgery and his increasing skill gained through experience, Victor
felt a great need for further training. More and more he was
confronted with new problems in the treatment of eyes—not only
cataracts but refractions, glaucoma, and intuming and outturning
edges of lids—and he was unable to cope with them to his satisfac¬
tion. It was 1928, still two years from his furlough, too long to wait
for extended time that might be spent in study. He knew that there
was a Dr. Macphail right there in India who was removing
thousands of cataracts each year.

"Could I come up," Victor wrote him, "and spend a month with
you?" The answer was an enthusiastic yes.

Dr. James Macphail was in Bamdah in the Ranchi area of Bihar,
200 miles from Mungeli. He had come out to India in 1889 to join
the Santal mission of what was then known as the Free Church of
Scotland. He had begun work almost at once, using the verandah
of the mission bungalow as his operating "theater," and not until
1894 was a hospital built. On his first furlough in Scotland he had
married Dr. Jennie Wells, who had joined him in his work in
Bamdah in 1898. Their son, Ronald, also a doctor, had joined his
father on the staff in 1925. Victor was fortunate to secure this
experience when he did, for Dr. James Macphail was to die the
following year, 1929.

Bamdah was eighteen miles from the railroad that went through
Ranchi, 2,100 feet above sea level, the summer capital of Bihar. The
weeks there were as full of inspiration as of instruction for Victor.
Dr. Macphail, his rich brogue as redolent of his background as
Scottish heather, was as sweet and dedicated a Christian as Hira
Lai. Life with him and his wife was a time of fellowship as well as
training. They discharged their duties in perfect harmony. While

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

99

his wife performed hundreds of operations on hemorrhoids in one
part of the hospital, in another Dr. Macphail was doing his
thousands of cataracts, besides being in full charge of the whole
mission work, school, hospital, and evangelism. At five in the
afternoon he would leave the hospital, go and inspect the school,
perhaps visit some village between teatime and dinner. Even at
meals his mind was never inactive, his curiosity never sated. A
question might come up at breakfast, perhaps a definition of some
medical term. If a spoonful of porridge was halfway to his mouth
he would put it down, rush off, and look up the word in the
dictionary.

For Victor the weeks spent in Bamdah were equivalent to
months of graduate study in ophthalmology. Dr. Macphail did not
operate on immature cataracts. This meant that the eye could not
see to count fingers but had good light perception. It also meant
that the fundus was not visible when he looked through an oph¬
thalmoscope. Then, when the tension was taken and there was no
rise or undue fall, the eye was considered right for surgery. Victor
learned to copy Dr. Macphail's swift but delicate technique, taking
the point of the knife, cutting into the anterior chamber over the
cataract, and lifting up the handle and scratching — oh, so
delicately!—the capsule. Sometimes the capsule was almost like
feathers, a soft kind of thing; sometimes it was leathery, and
scratching it made strips that in turn had to be further minced.
When that anterior capsule was scratched off in little pieces, the
incision was finished. The bits of capsule came out with the aque¬
ous. Then followed the expression. Out came the nucleus, carrying
along with it remains of the minced capsule. Finally came the
peripheral iridectomy leaving at twelve o'clock an opening, irrigat¬
ing the anterior chamber when necessary.

There was no dearth of patients. They came from a score, a
hundred, even a thousand kilometers away, from cities northeast
of Calcutta, from the forest homes of aboriginal tribes. One man
and his companion had come from Arabia. As Victor performed
one operation after another, he exulted in each fresh awareness of
confidence, of skill. He felt again a satisfaction in achievement that
no other form of medical work had ever yielded.

"Good, Victor." The Scotsman's frugality with words made
every expression of praise an accolade. "You have the touch. Each
day you improve. But just remember. ..." He would follow with
further advice and warnings. He was a stern critic who demanded
perfection.

From Dr. Macphail Victor learned much more also about the
general care of eyes and how to do refractions. So intensive was the

100

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

training, even though only a month long, that he returned to
Mungeli with knowledge and skill amounting to at least a year of
residence in ophthalmology. In fact he had so many surgical cases
to his credit that he wrote them up and applied for his F.A.C.S.
(Fellow of the American College of Surgeons). Before leaving for
India he had talked with Dr. Chevalier Jackson, eminent oto¬
laryngologist, inventor of the bronchoscope, famous for his work
in removing foreign bodies from the lungs and other deep tissues,
and learned that a missionary would not be charged membership
fees in the College of Surgeons. Otherwise he could not have
applied. His credentials were accepted, and in 1929 he was
awarded his F.A.C.S.

Back in Mungeli, the burden of work became heavier. The work
had grown to such proportions that Victor had little time to spare
for home and family. The playtime with the children he so loved,
Helen and Birch, had to be snatched at odd hours, as when they
swarmed onto his bed early in the morning for "rough house,"
violent ups and downs and backs and forths that sometimes re¬
sulted in a few tears because of a bump on bedpost or floor but
were always considered fun by everyone. "A warm sense of being
loved by Daddy filled my childhood," Helen was to remember.

She was to recall also that on occasion he could wield the razor
strap when rules were broken, especially the most important one,
"Always be respectful and obedient to Mother." But most of her
early memories were happy ones of Daddy coming from the hospi¬
tal for lunch, striding briskly into the living room, showing her six
or eight cataracts he had removed that morning, while she stared
in wonder; of Daddy saying her bedtime prayers, "Make Helen a
good girl and a brave girl," and always praying for the entire roster
of aunts, uncles, and cousins, most of whom she had never seen.
When she did meet them later, she would feel a warm closeness
and affection, because she had been praying for them as long as
she could remember.

There were also the few precious weeks when he was able to join
the family in the mountains. That year of 1928, instead of going to
Landour, where Helen had been hospitalized the previous sum¬
mer for pneumonia, they went to Kodaikanal in the south, a place
they liked so much better that never again would they go to
Landour for their holidays. Kodaikanal was also a haven for
missionaries of many denominations in the hot season, among
them Dr. Ida Scudder. In March of that year she had seen the
triumphant dedication of her new hospital buildings, and in the
previous year her medical college for women had been honored by
a visit from Mahatma Gandhi, whose nonviolent program of civil

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

101

disobedience was already challenging the colonial might of the
British Empire.

The Rambos did not see Dr. Ida that summer, for that intrepid
pioneer, then nearly sixty years old, was trekking over the
mountains of Kashmir, five hundred miles of them on foot, then
leaving for furlough in America. But they could visit her new
summer home called Hill Top, completed just two years before,
inspect its spacious rooms always open to guests, wander through
its famous gardens full of rare plant varieties, look out over the
southern plains from its site atop a seven thousand foot mountain,
hear the echo of Dr. Ida's oft-repeated prayer of gratitude:

"Oh God, if this be Your footstool,
What must Your throne be!"

The time for the Rambos' first furlough came in 1930. It could
hardly be called a year of rest. Already Victor sensed that he was on
the threshold of boundless challenge and opportunity. The call to
this new commitment was as clear and inevitable as the one in the
Wichita church, and he responded to it with the same unswerving
and single-minded zeal. He was not a halfway person. For him,
commitment was not merely intention or even purpose. It was
passion, obsession. Henceforth he would pursue one goal, sight
for the millions of curable blind in India.

If he was to become an ophthalmologist, he had to be the best
that training could provide. His books had served him well. Dr.
deSchweinitz and his lectures at Pennsylvania Hospital had been
good preparation. Dr. Macphail had increased his skill and knowl¬
edge. But in spite of a few hundred operations he was still a novice.
Of course a missionary was expected to spend most of his furlough
visiting churches and making speeches, gaining support (includ¬
ing money) for the work. Knowing his board, he could scarcely
hope for a whole year devoted to further medical study. But surely
they could not object to some months of summer vacation.

"Edinburgh," he planned with Louise. "In Philadelphia there
would be too many distractions, invitations difficult to refuse.
Besides, Edinburgh has some of the finest eye specialists and
professors in the world."

His passport, secured in February 1930 at the office of the United
States consulate general in Calcutta, read: "Victor C. Rambo,
Height 6 feet 1 inch, hair brown, eyes hazel." "Distinguishing
features" was left blank. No distinguishing features? Perhaps
there were none by passport standards. He had no scars, birth

102

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

defects, or abnormalities. But the most casual observer would have
noted that the eyes behind the round-rimmed spectacles were
steel-bright and keenly probing, that the six feet plus were as thin
as a rail. Many people would attempt to describe him and, like the
four blind men with the elephant, succeed only in pinpointing
some one feature of appearance or personality. A journalist would
picture "a tall, angular figure striding by like a lurching steplad-
der," his voice a "fortissimo baritone." A small child who heard
him speak in an American church would always conceive of a
missionary as "a tall, skinny man, running not walking, sort of at a
45 degree angle, with a shock of thick hair and a strange sounding
voice, slightly foreign in timbre, a man who would get down on his
bony knees to pray at the drop of a hat."

They left on furlough in early May, traveling with the Moody
family on an Italian ship to Europe, then overland to England.
Victor remained in Edinburgh for study while Louise and the
children went on by ship to America, to be met in New York by her
mother and brother. They spent the summer in Germantown with
her mother in the house on Harvey Street, occupying an apartment
that her mother had constructed on the third floor after her father's
death in 1918 and that conveniently happened to be vacant.

For Louise it was a restful summer. The weeks of separation were
easier to bear than on the mountains of India, for there was the
delight of renewed association with family, who met the children
for the first time, and with old friends of her college days. She was
especially happy to see Helen Fraser, known to all her friends as
"Tuck," who had been her roommate in her second year at Wilson.
Tuck had finished college and gone on to study medicine at the
Philadelphia Women's Medical College, where she had been a
classmate of Ida B. Scudder, Dr. Ida's niece and namesake. Tuck
had been Louise's maid of honor in 1923, and during this furlough
Louise would be an attendant at her wedding in Pittsburgh. Tuck
and her husband, Kirk West, would also become missionaries,
serving under the Presbyterian church in China until the Com¬
munist takeover. That fall of 1930, Louise rejoiced in the engage¬
ment of another old friend, Connie Covell, to her brother, Tom; and
the following January she saw them married.

After three months of grueling study in Edinburgh, Victor joined
his family. Eagle and Kate were living in Portland, Oregon, but
they came east and took an apartment in Germantown so the two
families could be close together. It was now that Victor discovered
what an interesting family he had married into, as Tom took him
around the rooms in his mother's house and showed him the
original prints of historic Philadelphia and famous marine scenes.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

103

"Why didn't she tell me!" Victor was nonplused, humbled. Here
he had lived for six years with this amazing woman, regaled her
with details of his forebears to the extent of his knowledge, boasted
with modest but pardonable pride of their pioneer hardihood,
educational prowess, and exploits in India and Turkey, yet she had
never once mentioned that her own included some of the famous
artists of England and America.

Fall brought a life of routine. Helen attended first grade at a small
private school a few blocks away, and Birch went to preschool in a
nearby church. Victor started the round of speaking engagements
expected of a missionary on furlough. His tours were eminently
successful, perhaps too much so, for his popularity began to
eclipse that of some church leaders in the higher echelons. In fact
after some months his father, back in Portland, sent him a letter of
warning.

"At the Oregon Convention we heard that you are the best
appealer and the most outstanding missionary our church has. It
was grand, but I feel I must issue a word of caution." He quoted
from his own experience. His unique work at Damoh had gained
interest in America and among visitors far above that in the usual
mission activity and had undoubtedly roused the green of envy in
some other missionaries. It may even have been partially responsi¬
ble for the closing of his orphanage and industrial school. "I would
have you profit by my mistakes. Look out for the green and have a
care. I am praying that you may keep yourself humble. Do the
work and avoid hauteur over it. Remember my second term. The
green won out."

It was not only the churches that responded to the stimulus of
Victor's enthusiasm. By now the Rambo Committee was an ac¬
tively functioning and well-organized body with the university
Christian Association its nucleus, Harry J. Tiedeck its official head,
and Dana How its principal adviser. Other prominent members
were Earl Harrison and Thomas B. K. Ringe, both able lawyers.
The treasurer of the Christian Association, Phelps Todd, was also
treasurer of the committee. The hospital at Mungeli was in dire
need of medical equipment, and the committee, apprised by Victor
of the need, was collecting funds to meet it. Already they had
raised over a thousand dollars.

It was during this furlough, in 1931, that Victor was asked to
perform an unusual mission. It was known in New York medical
circles that he was a physician who had handled leprosy in a
country in which the disease was endemic. Two patients were to be
sent by Pullman to Carville, Louisiana, the only public health
hospital for leprosy in America. "Will you accompany them?"

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came the request. Of course he would. He had treated Hansen's
disease routinely in India as the doctor in charge of the lep¬
rosarium, first in Mungeli, then at Jarhagaon. He had no more fear
of the disease than of any other mildly contagious ailment. True, he
had taken precautions against infection, scrubbing his hands and
sloshing his feet and shoes through strong antiseptic when return¬
ing from the center—the latter, at least, if he did not forget it. He
had never known of a missionary or doctor who had contracted the
disease, except one missionary's child. Possibly in this case the
child's ayah had had no medical check and at a contagious stage of
the disease had held him in her arms countless times. It was
usually children exposed at dose range over long periods who
were susceptible to contagion.

Used to the casual prevalence of the disease in India, he found
the elaborate precautions here almost ludicrous, concessions to a
superstitious fear dating from Bible times that equated leprosy
with uncleanness, untouchability, and sin, even though the
modern disease was not even akin to biblical leprosy. In this in¬
stance there would have been small danger of contagion even had
the two patients not been "burned-out" cases.

The Pullman was empty when he arrived, and an ambulance
was waiting. Sterile gloves and antiseptics were supplied. The two
patients were installed in separate compartments, which were
locked. Dr. Kehler, a Philadelphia physician, was in charge of one
patient, later to be known as Stanley Stein, who would become a
leader in introducing many reforms at Carville and in educating for
a better understanding of leprosy. Victor's charge was a man
named Polack, a Dutchman with an advanced form of the disease
and other complications, who was actually expected to die during
the night. Victor nursed him through successfully. He brought the
two patients their meals on paper plates and slept little, alerted to
every need of his charge. He sat for hours looking out the com¬
partment window, watching for the lights of towns they passed,
listening to the sound of the train's whistle echoing through the
dark, the eerie tolling of the bell at each railroad crossing.

Another ambulance was waiting when they arrived in Baton
Rouge, and they left the compartments, presumably to be thor¬
oughly fumigated by the health department. Victor rode the
twenty-five miles to Carville with his patient and was given a tour
of the hospital and its ample grounds. "All so posh," he com¬
mented later, "compared with the conditions we work with in
India."

Yet it was designed for isolation. Surrounded by marshland and
jungle, a river whose boats never stopped, no approach except by

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

105

rutted tracks that could hardly be called a road, and a high hur¬
ricane fence topped by barbed wire, it was a veritable prison. Were
he a sufferer of Hansen's disease, Victor thought he would have
preferred India, where at least there was no barbed wire and one
could feel that he was still part of the human race.

That same year, just before the family's departure from furlough,
there came a tremendous "wondhap." Harry Tiedeck heard of the
closing of the Philadelphia Women's Homeopathic Hospital. Much
of its equipment would be sold at auction. Harry took the commit¬
tee's thousand dollars to the auction and started bidding. Others of
the purchasers, knowing why he was there, would stop bidding
when he entered the competition on a certain lot, and he was able
to secure an incredible amount of secondhand supplies at remark¬
ably low cost, perhaps thirty-five thousand dollars worth had it
been new. Most of it was general and surgical equipment: beds,
operating tables (three of them), lights, and orthopedic appliances.
Without knowing it, he purchased also four hundred pounds of
sand, part of the orthopedic equipment, certainly a doubtful
necessity in a land like India, where in the dry seasons even the
most torrential rivers became dry sand beds. The whole collection,
including sandbags, was listed, packed, and dispatched to India by
a reputable British shipping firm.

"I could hardly believe it, Victor!" Harry said joyously, coming to
the ship in June to see the family off for England. "You should have
seen how the others stopped bidding just as soon as they saw my
hand go up."

"Wonderful, yes." Victor smiled a bit wryly. "But are you sure it
doesn't come under the definition of, say, a bit of skullduggery?"

They stopped in Edinburgh, this time the whole family, for
Victor to enjoy another three months of study. They ate at the same
table at which in 1847 Sir James Simpson, having used chloroform
on himself while experimenting with its substitution for ether in
midwifery, collapsed and passed out temporarily while he was
dining. Victor studied under giants in ophthalmology (Doctors
Trauquaire and Simpson) and general surgery (Fraser, Wilkie, and
Wade).

Encouraged by his professors, Victor took the examinations for
the Royal College of Surgeons, but he failed to pass. The examina¬
tions required were in general surgery as well as ophthalmology.
"Rambo, you're not giving us enough time," Professor Fraser told
him. "Stay and try again." That was impossible. He had already
extended his furlough to the limit, and there was now no doctor in
Mungeli. The opportunity would not come again. But a quarter of a
century later, in 1957, he received a letter in India notifying him of

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

his acceptance as a member in the Royal College of Surgeons with
no fee charged and no examination required. Satisfaction? Yes.
Another "wondhap"? No. By that time it would be merely a natu¬
ral tribute to a career far excelling in its quality and extent that of
many who had passed the examinations with flying colors.

6

L ife is full of paradoxes. For a year the Rambos had been living in
.J a land of abundance plunged suddenly into a great depres¬
sion. Now in 1932 they were back in a land of depression that
seemed for them blessed with abundance.

First there was a new hospital building. It had been started
before they left on furlough, a memorial gift from the Teachout
family in America and allotted to Mungeli by the mission board
because of the tremendous growth in its medical work under
Victor's leadership. Situated behind the old hospital and con¬
nected with it by a covered ramp, it was a substantial building of
concrete with tiled roof, screened windows, wide, pillared
porches, and space inside for a large and a small operating room,
scrub and linen chambers, a delivery room, and an examining
section for eye patients. The old building had been remodeled and
enlarged to contain the outpatient department, lab, and record
room. There would be no more devising makeshift ceilings to keep
dust from drifting down from the baked mud tiles or draping
windows with gauze to keep insects or even an occasional bird
from skimming over one's head!

There was also a trained nurse, Mrs. George E. Springer, widow
of a successful American businessman. She had come to India as a
missionary evangelist; then, seeing the great physical needs, she
had gone home, taken two years of nurse's training at the Christian
Hospital in Kansas City, and been assigned to Mungeli. But her
skills were not wholly in nursing. Her husband had been a builder,
and working with him she had acquired both knowledge and
expertise in construction.

"We need more wards for patients," she said to Victor soon after
the Teachout Memorial Block was dedicated. "I would like to build
a cottage ward in memory of my husband."

She started the work immediately: hiring masons; purchasing
lumber, tiles, and cement; getting sand transported from the

107

108

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

riverbed in the dry season for mixing the cement; and supervising
the work with an eagle eye which, to the workmens' dismay,
brooked no deviation from plumb or skimping of materials or,
worse yet, extra minutes of siesta.

"She'd rather build than nurse," observed Victor jokingly to
Hira Lai. Yet such was her vigor and gracious skill in directing and
delegating duties that the nursing service was never neglected.
She was like a busy angel whose holy activity must at times be
accompanied by much flapping of wings and upsetting currents of
air. The buildings she created certainly made history for Mungeli.

The year 1932 also had its paradoxes — death in the midst of life,
new life emerging in the wake of death. On the last day of January,
Eagle Rambo attended services as usual in the First Christian
Church of Portland. His strength had declined after the Near East
experience so that he had never taken another pastorate, but he
had recently felt unusually well. That night he retired at the usual
time, but before midnight he had quietly slipped away. One day
after the cable arrived, six-year-old Birch saw his father standing
on the verandah, staring down at the ground for what seemed an
interminable time. Something in the intensity of his quietness
forbade even a curious child's interruption. Presently he went into
the house and Birch heard him tell Louise that he had received a
letter telling of his father's death. Although the news was
heartbreaking, after that one time of long silence Victor scarcely
mentioned the loss. He and his family were not the only ones who
grieved in India. Dozens of the orphans to whom Eagle was
"Papa-ji" mourned the passing of the beloved father.

But the year brought new life as well, for William Milton Rambo,
named for both his grandfathers, arrived in November. This time
Louise did not need to go to Bilaspur for the confinement. The new
hospital was fully able to provide all necessary facilities.

"William Milton is doing well," Victor wrote Kate in February
1933. "He grows regularly and coos and grimaces and opens his
mouth and tries all sorts of funny stunts which send us all and
especially Birch into shrieks of laughter."

The same letter and others in following weeks revealed some of
his own activities. "Today I did an operation on a horse's eye. It had
a filaria in it, a worm about two inches long. I made an incision but
the filaria did not come out. The horse jerked his head and tossed
about. He was well bound down, however, and a longer incision
bringing up a sort of flap caused the worm to partly come out, and
there was no difficulty in getting the rest."

"Yesterday I went out to the leprosy hospital and on to the
Takhatpur village bazaar. Can't you picture all of the villagers in for

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

109

market? The vegetable sellers sitting on the ground, tiny tomatoes,
egg plant, rice, dal, onions, garlic, cloth for saris and dhotis,
bamboo baskets, and, a thing you did not see in the old days,
lorries going past packed with all sorts of people. The motor
honked and honked and with difficulty maneuvered through the
masses of people coming to the bazaar from hundreds of villages
on thousands of errands. All kinds turn up for medicine, and we
call many of them to the hospital/'

"Today I did two cataracts and took a tumor off a man's forehead.
I believe it will return. He has elephantiasis. We seldom have a
patient here with only one disease. The thing that keeps us all busy
is to keep from getting some of these diseases ourselves, and we do
not always succeed. Malaria is the worst offender."

"We have fifteen pigeons, three guinea pigs, one white rat, and a
horse. They are all well. I would like a dog for the children,
but when I saw a number of small children that had been bitten
by a little mad pup being given injections, I knew it wasn't worth
it."

For months after his return, Victor was the only qualified doctor
in the station. Hopefully, impatiently, he waited for the return of
the two students he had sent to Miraj. In the meantime he and Hira
Lai and their helpers managed an incredible workload. In the first
year they treated in outlying dispensaries nearly 17,000 patients, in
Mungeli alone 549 inpatients, and Victor performed 737 opera¬
tions, mostly in eyes. A Ford provided by his American friends
made possible far more visits to villages and the leprosy hospital
home. There was the prospect of an electric system that would
make possible lights, fans, and refrigeration if running expenses
could be guaranteed. There was the hurdle. The depression in
America was sadly curtailing mission funds. Budgets, inadequate
to begin with, had been cut by a third.

"We are so short of funds," Victor wrote his mother, "that we
have to get every bit of money out of everybody that comes, and
that adds a lot of strain. I have no secretary. We lost our driver
because we could not pay him what he wanted."

But he wrote few words of complaint. Work dominated letters as
well as days.

"Man stuck a needle used for sewing into the wall of his mud hut
for safe keeping. His young wife was plastering the wall with her
hand. Two inches of the 'eye' portion entered her hand and broke
off. It took half an hour of my tennis time in the evening to find the
needle. Would that an X-ray had been handy!"

"A woman had a beard of rice stuck in her eyes. A coucher in the
market burned her forehead and temple the same way he does for

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

glaucoma, burning a half inch circle almost to the bone. She re¬
fused to have the eye removed."

Such lack of patients' cooperation resulted in occasional failure,
as with a woman on whom Victor performed a conservative, suc¬
cessful, uncomplicated operation for one of her two cataracts.
Family members caring for her disregarded orders. She opened the
bandages the first day. The second day she insisted on getting up
and walking about. Because of this straining, a bit of iris appeared
in the wound the third day. She should have had not only ward
nursing but also a special nurse. None was available. She sat up,
laughing and conversing, and refused to stay in bed. The iris came
out farther. It was necessary to snip it off to prevent further pro¬
lapse. She refused to have it done. As the summer wore on, vision
in the eye was lost.

"You came to India to ruin my mother's eyes," accused her son
hotly.

A coucher arrived in her village and operated on the other eye,
pushing the opaque lens aside with his unsanitary, blunt instru¬
ment. She was able to see immediately. Mounting his little plat¬
form in the village marketplace, the coucher displayed his success
to the crowd.

"See!" He pointed triumphantly. "That is the eye the modern
doctor operated on. It is blind. The other eye I operated on with the
sacred ancient method given us by the gods. She sees well with
this eye."

Victor rejoiced over her restored sight, only hoping that the
usual infection resulting in blindness would not occur. Fortunately
the case brought not one less patient to the hospital.

There were satisfactions that compensated for all such disap¬
pointments. One morning after prayers there came to the hospital
a woman of about forty, a good wife, mother, and farm worker until
she had lost her sight with cataracts. With the blindness she had
also lost her mind. For three years she had been completely dis¬
oriented, not knowing her own name, her family, her village, or
the time of day. She would eat food only when it was put in her
mouth. And here she was brought by her husband and all five of
her children. He found that the cataracts were in good eyes and
could be removed. But who would nurse her to be sure she would
not dig her eyes out?

"Go ahead," assured two of his nurses. "We will care for her."

Under local anesthetic, with preparation for general if necessary,
one cataract was removed. The eye looked so wonderful! A
twenty-four hour vigil was begun by the already overworked

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

111

nursing staff. The husband and older son were able to help, and in
a week the bandage came off. By the end of that first day of sight
the woman was oriented. She looked up and recognized members
of her family, tears streaming from her eyes. She stayed to let Victor
take out the second cataract, and at the end of another ten days the
family walked back to their village with a mother completely re¬
stored, not only in vision but also in mind. And of course all had
heard the story of Jesus, in whose name the restoring work had
been done. What gladness there was in the world, thought Victor,
what unspeakable joy!

Despite all difficulties, the early years of the thirties were full of
such "wondhaps." One was the arrival of the equipment Harry
Tiedeck had purchased. Victor went to Bombay to meet the ship.
When he was shown the list of supplies and saw to his amazement
that included in the lot of orthopedic equipment were 400 pounds
of sandbags, his blood pressure must have mounted several
points. There they were, packed in tough bags in a thick-boarded
box with iron bands, heavy as lead, strong enough to hold an army
of wild cats. He went to the Bombay manager of the Scotch ship¬
ping firm. "Look here," he said, "sand is the last thing we need.
Please, dump it somewhere here. Throw it in the ocean, anything.
Only don't make us pay for bringing it across country, then hauling
it over thirty miles in an ox cart!"

The shipment arrived in Mungeli. And what should appear on
the first ox cart but the box of sandbags. Operating tables, beds,
lights, and orthopedic equipment came along, too, a thousand and
more articles desperately needed, a godsend. And even the sand
proved not a total liability.

"Sand?" Mrs. Springer's eye sparkled. "From America?" She
was overjoyed. "I shall mix it with Indian cement, and there will be
some real American earth in my new ward." Sure enough, it
became part of the porch floor in the house she was building. So for
the next half century and more, countless Indian feet would be
treading softly on a bit of American soil.

Some years later, when she returned from furlough, Mrs.
Springer came again to Victor. In her hand she held a small
jeweler's box which, opened, revealed a ring set with a large,
lustrous diamond. Its scintillating brilliance seemed to reflect the
sparkle in her eyes. Victor blinked. "What—how—why, how
beautiful!"

"My engagement ring," she said simply. Then she told him a
story. On her way out to India she had stopped in Hong Kong and
taken a trip on a tourist boat around the harbor. A band of robbers

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

had come on board, stripping the passengers of rings, watches,
necklaces, and money. Somehow she had managed to hide her
diamond ring in her shoe.

"Victor," she said, "I want to make this ring significant. I don't
want lawyers and other strangers haggling over my engagement
ring when I am gone. I am going to sell it and use the money to
build another ward. My husband would have liked his diamond
used in this way, and it will certainly do more good than sparkling
on these old fingers."

So there would come into being the Springer Diamond Ward, a
sturdy building of two rooms in which patients and their families
could stay, with ample facilities for cooking and bathing and wide
verandahs that additional patients in the busy season could be
sheltered on.

These two wards were not to be Mrs. Springer's only donations.
Sitarabai, an orphan girl who grew up in the mission and spent her
life as a much loved matron in mission boarding schools, directed
in her will that her life's savings should be used for the benefit of
women and children of Mungeli, but legal difficulties prevented
the mission from receiving the money. Mrs. Springer once more
came forward and devoted some of her savings to building the
Sitara Memorial Ward, in which many of the girls Sitara had
mothered, with their children, could receive care and treatment.

During these years when Victor was the only doctor and waiting
for the return of his two students, he was by no means marking
time. His days and nights were full of the joy of healing and telling
people of the love of Jesus. Once he was called to a family nine
miles into the country from Mungeli. The note brought to him
read, "Please come. Doctor Sahib, everybody is sick." But what a
problem he had getting there! It was the rainy season. A small
pony had been sent to bring him. His legs were so long that his feet
dragged all the way on the rain-soaked ground. He was splashed
to the waist by the deep puddles that could only be found in a land
like India. Arriving in the little village home and finding the half-
dozen members of the family arranged on string cots and mats,
indeed sick, he made a fervent prayer. "Lord Jesus, heal the hearts
and bowels of this family, all of them!" Then he set to work. Six
hours later the cots and mats were all empty, as each person was
sufficiently recovered to be up and about. It was a Christian family.
Victor gathered them all around him to thank the Master Healer.
Going home through the mud and water on the same little pony,
he was so happy that his legs seemed to be flying, not dragging.

Mud, rain, drought, heat. They followed one another, swiftly,

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

113

each season as full of activity as the days it contained. One such
day was typical. Because it was the beginning of the hot season,
Victor was sleeping out under the gul mohr tree beside the bun¬
galow. About three in the morning, he was wakened by a voice
somewhere near his bed.

"Sahib-ji! Doctor Sahib-ji!"

"Yes?"

"My brother is very sick. It seems like the cholera."

Victor dragged himself up from sleep. "Er—yes. Wait, then. I'm
coming."

It took only a few minutes to pull on his clothes and shoes, call a
pharmacist from the hospital, and, with medicine and instru¬
ments, follow Milan Das to his village home about a furlong away.
Both Milan Das and his brother Madan were Christians, but they
were spiritually lukewarm, almost cold, and Victor welcomed this
opportunity to show his concern. Madan did show symptoms of
cholera, but after a little treatment they subsided; and because
there was no epidemic in the district, Victor concluded that his
sickness was not that dreaded scourge. Leaving instructions to call
him if there was further need, he returned home and to bed.

At 5 A.M. he was wakened again, this time by the rising sun, the
raucous calls of crows, and the crash and clatter of the water
carriers at the garden well. The day had begun. The nights were
still cool enough for comfortable sleep, but there was the promise
of mounting heat. He was glad Louise had gone with the children
to Kodai.

As he was bathing, the hospital watchman came to report that
the patient in number six bed was about to be taken home by his
family. That can't be allowed to happen! he thought. It was a three-
year-old child with a fractured hip who was doing well, but dis¬
charge too early might well condemn him to the life of a cripple.
Giving a final whisk of the towel and a tug to his collar, he rushed
off to the hospital. After twenty minutes of persuasion, argument,
and warning, the family agreed to let the child stay at least another
week. India perhaps was spared another cripple.

Victor returned to the bungalow for breakfast, morning prayers
in Hindi with servants and other compound workers, and then a
precious half hour at his desk—or nearly that before a student
compounder came to report the patients were already waiting at
the dispensary. With a last hopeless look at the pile of letters to be
answered, Victor followed him.

He began the day's work as usual with a short service in which
all hospital workers joined, as well as the dispensary patients and

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

ambulatory cases among the inpatients. A Hindi hymn was played
on the phonograph, another sung, and then Hira Lai read a simple
gospel story and interpreted it in terms of village life, so much like
that in ancient Palestine. Today he told them how Yesu, Doctor of
doctors, healed blind Bartimaeus.

Now for the long line of waiting patients. First came a woman
who had had cataracts for six or seven years. A powerful electric
torch, flashed close to the eyes, elicited no response. It was a
heartbreaking task to explain to the woman and her young brother
that nothing could be done.

"Something, Doctor-ji!" The boy dropped to the floor, clasping
Victor's knees. "Please, do something!"

He did, the only thing possible. He told them of Yesu, the Light
of the world, who could give the blind seeing eyes of the spirit; but
the boy only stared at him with eyes almost as unseeing as his
sister's. Victor watched them go slowly away down the road,
knowing that he would never see them again. In later years he
would learn to give mobility training by the proper use of a cane.

Two men with cataracts who still had light perception came. He
told them to sit down at one side until he was ready to operate.
Also waiting was a woman with entropion, eyelids so indrawn that
the lashes constantly irritated the eyes; if allowed to continue, the
irritation would cause nearly unbearable pain and perhaps blind¬
ness.

Next came a child with healed burns, her face, hands, and knees
a mass of scar tissue, hands and fingers so doubled back on the
arms and bound by the scars that they were useless. Fortunately
the eyes had been saved, although the scars had drawn down the
lower lids. She had been left alone in the house, explained the
father and grandmother, "just for a little time, Sahib-ji," while the
mother went to draw water and the rest of the family was working
in the fields. She had fallen in the fire.

"If you will stay in the hospital," Victor said, "I will try to free the
hands and bring the eyelids to their proper place." The father, he
noticed, was suffering from severe trachoma, and they could help
him, too.

The long line continued: a patient with chronic dysentery, who
must remain for treatment; several with ulcers, who needed in¬
travenous injections; a woman with a large sebacious cyst of the
neck. He learned that her name was Glumli, her husband Cherku.
They had a son, Khorbharewa, in his teens. They were thrifty
farming people from Takhatpur. Victor assured them he could
remove the cyst, and they also remained for surgery. Several cases
of acute conjunctivitis were sent to the partially trained Indian

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

115

nurse for treatment, and prescriptions for others with minor ail¬
ments were taken to the pharmacists.

By this time Mrs. Springer had the operating room ready, so
Victor began his surgery. Present in the small room were Dr. Hira
Lai, Mrs. Springer, two pharmacists, two relatives of the patient,
two prosperous Indians from the town who were eager to see an
operation, Victor himself, the patient, and two small operating
tables. One of the men with cataract was helped to the table, his
right eye anesthetized. As Victor turned to the patient after pray¬
ing, knife in hand, he paused, startled. When he had examined the
man an hour before, both eyes had had cataracts. Now the left eye
was clear.

"Can you see?" he demanded. "Do you see my hand before your
face?"

Yes, he could see, with that left eye. Then where was that
cataract that had been there just an hour ago? An Indian vaid
(coucher), the patient told him, had operated on that eye, and now
he could see when lying down. That explained it. Telling him to sit
up, Victor could see the displaced lens, opaque with cataract,
swing down and cover the pupil, and the man was once more
blind. When he lay down the lens swung back to the top of the eye,
and he could see.

"You're fortunate, brother," Victor commented grimly. Usually
the late result of the coucher's work was hopeless blindness. Al¬
though it would be delicate, uncertain work, he still could remove
that displaced, swinging lens. He proceeded to operate on the
man's right eye, and the cataract slipped out almost immediately.

Patient followed patient on the table. One cataract was stubborn
but finally yielded, and Victor rejoiced in the skill that had brought
absolutely no vitreous to the wound. The woman with entropion
was nervous but glad to get the irritating lashes outside and not
scratching her eyeballs. The sebacious cyst was removed, and
Glumli was given a small room so that her husband and son could
stay with her and cook her food. The child with the terrible burns
must wait until tomorrow, when Victor hoped he would have more
time.

It was past noon when he finished, and, as expected, the ther¬
mometer registered well above a hundred. Victor went home for
lunch and a short rest—very short, for at 2:30 there was a rush call.
A baby with opium poisoning was brought to the hospital. As he
worked over it, Victor got the story from the distraught father. The
child had been left within reach of three annas worth of opium, a
piece about as big as the end of an adult's little finger. The mother
was asleep, and the baby had eaten all of it. They had been in the

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

habit of giving it small quantities of the drug from time to time, as
was the custom among some middle and lower class Hindus in the
area.

While Victor kept working over the baby, he talked to the father
about the evils of opium and its effect on children, whom the
Master Yesu loved so much. Mrs. Springer brought coffee from the
supply that was carefully hoarded for special occasions but given
gladly for such an emergency. It proved a good stimulant, and the
baby's condition improved. The father promised with tearful ear¬
nestness that never again would any opium be used in his home.
Victor hoped that a night in the hospital would restore the baby to
health.

That afternoon he paid visits to the homes of two well-to-do
Indians in Mungeli town across the river who had shown a casual
interest in the Christian way. He took part in the semiweekly
neosalvarsan clinic for sufferers of yaws at the hospital.

He had no time for his cambric tea, but he did squeeze in a brief
bout of tennis before a later dinner. His bed was again under the
glorious gul mohr, its canopy of red and gold blossoms forming a
huge parasol above his head, the temperature down again into the
nineties, making it cool enough to sleep. But he did not sleep for
long. During the night he paid several visits to the opium-
poisoned baby in the hospital. Once or twice its pulse failed, and
the nurse on duty kept calling him. But by morning he was certain
the child was going to live. His day was ended, another one begun.

Victor's growing fame as a remover of cataracts and doctor of
other eye ailments sometimes involved him in strange situations.
One morning he and Hira Lai were conducting their clinic out of
doors in the sun, for it was the cold season. Of course the hospital
had no heat. Often there would be little particles of ice in the pie
plates filled with water that they set out to see if the temperature
had gone down to freezing during the night. Seated in the com¬
pound with backs to the mounting sun, the clinic table in front
bearing the records of patients, stethoscopes, sphygmomanome¬
ter, and other tools, they would begin the diagnoses and treat¬
ment. Victor begrudged himself his warmly shod feet and the
layers of sweater and jacket that he wore while patients came with
bare or sandaled feet, a thin cotton dhoti or sari and perhaps a
shawl thrown about the shoulders. But as the sun's heat increased
he would remove one layer after another and don a topee to shade
his eyes.

The main road to Bilaspur ran just behind them, its sounds of
clopping hoofs, rumbling carts, bicycle bells, and shrill cries of
prodding drivers forming a dull, steady undertone to the conversa-

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117

tion between doctors and patients. So accustomed was he to the
passing crowds that Victor paid no more attention to them than to
the flies that even in this cold season, once the sun brought
warmth, buzzed about. Then as there came a less familiar sound he
turned curiously to Hira Lai. Ding dong , then a little space, ding
dong.

"An elephant," observed Hira Lai.

The sounds of the bell kept repeating, each time with a little
space between, every beat of the clapper marking the descent of a
ponderous foot. Elephants seldom appeared on the road, so they
lifted their heads to watch it pass. It didn't. In through the gate it
came, and the next Victor knew, there was the towering shape with
its trunk almost over the table. One sweep of the long proboscis
and stethoscope, records, and medicines would have gone flying.
Hastily Victor pushed them to one side, out of danger. As the
mahout slipped from his perch, Victor rose to his feet. Knowing that
patients might arrive via any sort of conveyance from charpoi to cart
or donkey, even to camel, he accepted the status of the newcomer
as patient without question.

"Namaste , brother, " he greeted the mahout. "Give us your name,
and tell us what is your trouble."

"Nahin , no. Doctor Sahib." The mahout made vigorous dissent.
"Not I. Look at my elephant. She is sick. Ai-oh, see her eye!"

Leaning back and looking up, Victor noted that sure enough,
one of the eyes was closed, pus oozing from it. The mahout burst
into an explanation with excited gestures. It had happened in the
forest when the elephant had reached up to grab some branches
and leaves to feed on. She must have scratched it on a branch, and
it had got worse and worse. He knew that the Sahib was a doctor
who could treat eyes, and so he had come.

Victor nodded. He was a doctor who treated eyes, and the
elephant obviously needed attention. It was not the "eye-fly"
season, but there were always children with inflamed eyes, and
potassium permanganate solution was in readiness. He ordered it
for the elephant. Rather than use a hard syringe, he directed that a
soft ear syringe be boiled and filled with the medication. But who
would apply the remedy? Victor had no inclination to perform the
act; nor did Hira Lai or the pharmacists.

"I will do it," offered the mahout. Thereupon he grasped the
trunk and, reaching up high on a level with the elephant's eye,
gave the bulb a good squeeze. Valiantly he held on while the trunk
thrashed up and down, back and forth, some times lifting him off
his feet. He irrigated the eye clean, then wiped it with the sterile
cotton Victor handed him.

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

"Bring her back this afternoon," Victor told him.

" Meherbani /" The mahout was fervently grateful.

Victor took one of the patient registration cards and under the
word Name wrote "Elephant."

Ding dong, ding dong. That afternoon when the patient entered
the gate, she was followed by a train of curious, skipping children,
among them the two young Rambos, excited over the unusual
sight of an elephant in the role of hospital patient. The process of
irrigation was repeated with far less fuss.

"What is her name?" Victor asked the mahout.

"Sundari," was the proud answer. So on her card Victor replaced
"Elephant" with the name "Sundari," which means "Beautiful,"
and recorded her age as eighteen.

She came again the next day and the next, taking her treatment
each time more quietly, and the eye steadily improved. The fourth
day it looked completely clean, and the scrape on the top of the
cornea had healed with a little gray string of opacity that Victor
assured the mahout would become much better. He never saw
Beautiful again, but he would remember her with affection as one
of his most interesting and successful cases in ophthalmology.

Clinics were not always held at the hospital. As Victor and his
helpers went on calls into the villages, they found unnumbered
victims of disease who could not be persuaded to come to the
hospital. One of the most prevalent diseases was yaws, charac¬
terized by the eruption of disfiguring skin lesions looking some¬
thing like raspberries. Closely related to the spirochete causing
yaws was the one producing syphilis, one of the most destructive
scourges of the Indian countryside. Everywhere they went they
saw its indications, the ulcerated lips, enlargement of lymphatic
glands, and other symptoms, It was found that the neosalvarsan
was effective in attacking the treponema spirochete, germ of
syphilis, as well as the the spirochete causing yaws, and injections
were given to patients coming to the hospital. Then Victor had an
idea.

"We're reaching only a tiny fraction of such persons," he had
said to Hira Lai early in his first term of service. "Why not take the
remedy to them instead of waiting for them to come to us?"

So outclinics had been started. A worker would be sent into a
group of villages, and he would gather together all persons who
had signs of these diseases. Then a team of doctor or pharmacist
and a helper would go out into the villages and give injections.
They took syringes, trays in which to boil water, and tincture of
iodine or Mercurochrome to cleanse the skin. Often just one injec-

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

119

tion would have the happy effect of making the ulceration and
overgrowth of certain cells disappear.

Usually then the patient would feel himself "cured/' but of
course that was not the case. More treatment was needed. "Why
take more treatment when the lesion had disappeared?" would be
the usual response. Such misunderstanding made it difficult to
follow up with the necessary curative measures. Later the Kahn
test was introduced and complete cure was assured.

Sometimes such sallies into the villages could be combined with
desirable relaxation, hunting trips into the forest areas where wild
game was abundant. At first they would merely take along in¬
jections into these "camps"; then came the idea of taking medica¬
tions for other ailments such as malaria. So the sui (needle) was
instrumental in opening up many outlying areas to medical ser¬
vices.

These outclinics for yaws and syphilis soon became a source of
much-needed income for the hospital, for sufferers were glad to
pay a few rupees for their treatment, enough to cover the cost of a
bullock cart or hiring bicycles for the trip. Because much hospital
work was done gratis for the patients, this additional income made
possible many services that the stipend from the mission board
was unable to supply. Presently not only were Victor, and Hira Lai,
and the trained pharmacists conducting such clinics, but also some
middle- and high-school graduates picked up the technique of
giving injections; although the students were not registered, the
practice was permitted by the government because of the tremen¬
dous need.

Unfortunately the practice became as much a racket as couching
and was much less easily controlled by government. Fatalism
concerning death was so prevalent that if a person died from
harmful medication it was considered his appointed lot, but a
patient who lost his eye from couching was still living and could
report the operation to the government, whose officials could track
down the offender. Some of the fake practitioners prospered ex¬
cessively, charging high prices for injections, their opaque syringes
often filled with nothing but water. Yet in spite of such abuses the
benefits of the outclinics were incalculable.

One of the distressing symptoms of the rainy season in June and
July was repeated attacks among village children of conjunctivitis.
Gnats and flies proliferated. Trachoma made the conjunctivitis
worse until every cubic millimeter of the conjunctiva was inflamed.
School studies became impossible.

Then Victor tried an experiment in the surrounding mission

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

schools. Zinc boric drops were instilled in every eye in the schools
before conjunctivitis developed except in a few of the children or a
teacher. Almost none of the children developed the infection. Then
for a month or two twice a week a solution of a quarter percent zinc
sulfate and a half percent boric acid with distilled or boiled water
was given by the teachers, and at least this curse of the "eye fly
season," with its painful inflammation and pus discharge, was
almost eradicated. Another threat to vision was conquered, praise
the Lord! If only the remedy could be applied to all the suffering
children in India's half million villages.

Unlike most of his mission associates, Victor worked indefatiga-
bly to arouse government action in improving public health. Espe¬
cially were his efforts directed through the British civil service
against couching. He made numerous trips to Nagpur, the provin¬
cial center, to urge passage of a law prohibiting the practice, and
the whole household, including the children, shared his joy when
he was finally notified that couching had been made a criminal
offense in Central Provinces.

Also in those years of the early thirties, when few people, cer¬
tainly not those connected with the church, considered population
control to be necessary, Victor became so concerned about the
problem that with his own money he hired a couple to explain
ways of family planning in Mungeli and surrounding villages. This
compounder and his capable wife would go from a center, first by
ox cart, then by cycle with the woman sitting on the luggage carrier,
out into the villages giving demonstrations of methods of family
planning. At a time when sex education was taboo for Indians as
well as his own associates, Victor was supplying this couple,
Ahsan Ali and his wife, with charts and other materials giving
education in birth control.

It was his Rambo Committee that made most of such innovations
possible, for it was constantly functioning, keeping both money
and necessary supplies coming. Most welcome and valuable were
donations of glasses. After his study with Dr. Macphail, Victor had
tried to provide each of his cataract patients as well as many others
with the necessary lenses. An appeal had gone out through the
committee, and Victor had told of the need on his speaking tours.
"Send us your old glasses, lenses, frames. We can use them all." At
first individuals sent them straight to the field. Then the customs
people decided that here was valuable merchandise coming in,
often with frames of gold, and they began charging duties. So the
shipments were made more cheaply through Harry Tiedeck's
office.

It was amazing how often a pair of those used glasses could

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121

be found to fit a patient's need, not only for those with cata¬
racts but also for the whole gamut of optical conditions
— nearsightedness and farsightedness, astigmatism, and other
compound deficiencies that weaken and destroy vision. Often a
pair could be found with not only lenses that fit the eyes but also a
frame well adjusted to the face. Victor had learned to give refrac¬
tions from Dr. Edmund Tait, and it was always possible to get
prescriptions filled in one of the larger cities. But without the
contributions of used glasses, the poorer patients could have been
given far less perfect frames.

It was the money the committee provided for the education of
his two medical students at Miraj that promised the greatest
benefit, however. At the end of their five years of training in 1933,
Victor awaited their return with both anticipation and impatience.
They had done well — almost too well, he discovered to his con¬
sternation. Prabhu Dayal Sukhnandan had performed so out¬
standingly in surgery that Dr. Vail wanted to keep him on the Miraj
staff.

"Please, please send him to us," Victor wrote in a letter that might
well have been more demanding than pleading. His funds had
paid for the young man's education, and it had been understood
that he was to come to Mungeli. But refusal of the Miraj position
would mean sacrifice, and Victor did not want to impose a deci¬
sion. Prabhu Dayal (the name meant "dear kindly lord") came of
his own volition to Mungeli, with his classmate Philip James.

These were by no means the only students Victor was to fi¬
nance through the Rambo Committee. In coming years others
would be sent to study medicine, some for male nursing, some
for compounding, and some later for the laboratory techni¬
cian's or X-ray or optician's courses; and when their training was
completed, most of them would come to Mungeli or go to other
of the Mission's stations to serve and become part of the Chris¬
tian community. It was done largely without the support or coope¬
ration of the mission board. Indeed, most of its officials continued
to view such training of Indians with active disapproval. Only
after thirty years, when Victor and his associates had trained fif¬
teen young Indian doctors, would the board recognize the value
of the achievement.

"The medical program of our mission hospitals," Donald
McGavran was to write in I960, "would have folded up years ago
except as missionary doctors became fewer, Indian doctors, Vic¬
tor's trainees, were available. Of course not all of them worked out.
Some refused to work for small salaries and took government jobs.
But a good core remained. And how glad the mission is now that

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Victor had that fund from Philadelphia and refused to be deterred
by his fellow missionaries!"

The two doctors were all Victor had hoped for. Philip James
arrived first. Son of the small boy whom Hira Lai had found long
ago beside his sick father on the road and who had become Pastor
Jaita, he was a finely trained general physician and diagnostician
who with his wife, Shanti, soon played a prominent part in the
church and community life of Mungeli. In time he was to head the
diagnostic department of the hospital at which laboratory techni¬
cians were trained. He took over the treatments at the leprosy
home and was active in promoting community health. He also
became financial administrator, and under his management there
was never a deficit. Such personal interest and concern did he
show for the patients that each one, if possible, would give every
paisa asked for a contribution. Although the charges were small or,
if necessary, nil, there was soon such a huge amount of surgery
that the petty annas, paisa, and cowries were enough to cover ex¬
penses. That income could not cover staff salaries, however, which
were paid by the mission board, and it was these that suffered
during the depression cuts. "Who knows," Victor wrote his
mother, "when the workers will be called home because of lack of
funds!"

Prabhu Dayal Sukhnandan, oldest son of Sukhnandan, a ref¬
ugee who had come to the mission with his deaf mute brother,
Kulandan, in the first famine, had become a skilled surgeon. No
wonder, Victor decided, that Doctors Vail and Wanless had wanted
to keep him at Miraj. With surprise and delight Victor watched him
in action, marveling at his precision and accuracy yet swiftness of
motion. Not only had he been thoroughly grounded in technique,
but he also had the knack. He "knew his point." He held his hand
in exactly the right position, like an artist, extensor and flexor
balanced close to the body. Dayal had been bom and had grown up
on a farm, his family struggling against poverty. "Yet out of that
little home," Victor was to say years later, "came one of the most
gifted and successful surgeons produced by the church in India."

Later also, the result of that same mission teaching and emphasis
on education, would come Raj, Dayal's son, who after years of
American and Canadian training would earn the Fellowship of the
American College of Surgeons and also of the Royal College
of Surgeons, Canada, returning to India to become head of the
Philadelphia Hospital of Ambala City, Haryana. Such were
the widening circles generated by one simple act of Christian
caring.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

123

As time went on, Victor was increasingly impressed with young
Dayal's surgical skill. His diagnoses for this or that operation were
also consistently excellent. In each case, as when he did a perfect
amputation of a lower leg in ten minutes, Victor knew that the
operation was performed as accurately as it was swiftly. The skill of
Dr. Vail, his mentor and one of the great mission surgeons, had
entered into his very bones and sinews.

They worked well together, or, rather, in conjunction. One day
Victor was in the midst of operating on eighteen cataracts in the big
operating room when Dayal called him to examine a case of abdom¬
inal pregnancy that had come in at full term. Victor "unscrubbed"
and went to the other operating room. The baby was, as he de¬
scribed it, "all over the place." He could feel its toes and fingers
through the abdominal muscles, which were stretched by previous
pregnancies. The patient, already the mother of four, had com¬
plained that this was the "kickingest one" she had ever had. Of
course it had to be taken out, but what a job. Where would the
placenta be fastened? Victor returned gratefully to his cataracts,
glad to leave the problem to his colleague. After completing his
eighteen extractions, he returned to find the baby expertly deliv¬
ered and displaying the roundest head he had ever seen in a
newborn baby. It was no wonder: the head had not even ap¬
proached the birth canal. Both mother and child were doing well.
All the cataract patients had relatives to care for them. It was a good
day's work. Victor and Dayal even had time for a bit of tennis.

Dayal was unmarried, a situation that could not fail to arouse
both concern and conniving among his fellow workers. There
seemed to be no likely candidate among the Christians in the
Mungeli neighborhood, at least none to Dayal's liking. Victor made
occasional trips to examine the eyes of the teachers and pupils in
the Johnson Girls' High School in Jabalpur, several hundred miles
away by train, and on one visit he noted the wifely potential of
some of the gifted and attractive members of the staff. "Wouldn't it
be a good idea to examine also the ears, noses, and throats of every
teacher and student?" Victor asked the principal. "I could bring
along my assistant next time to facilitate the process."

"Why, yes," she agreed, "that's an excellent idea."

So the next time Victor went to the school, Prabhu Dayal
Sukhnandan went with him; and while Victor examined eyes,
Dayal had a look at hundreds of ears, noses, and throats—also at a
goodly array of female intellect and pulchritude. The ploy was
highly successful. Presently a marriage was arranged between
Dayal and Lily James, one of the most attractive and best-

124

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

educated young teachers on the Johnson staff. It was a union with
the fairytale ending of "happily ever after," including the raising of
five fine children. Victor was highly satisfied with his innocent
little game of matchmaking.

Of course his surgical work in Mungeli involved far more than
eyes, although they had become his chief concern and specialty.
He and Dayal shared in the general surgery. One such operation
brought a threat to Victor's own eyesight. He was operating on a
small boy. A kidney or bladder stone had descended through the
urethra and had lodged at the penile outlet, backing up the boy's
distended bladder above the umbilicus and making him howl and
cringe in unbearable pain. The stone was fixed in the meatus of his
penile urethra. Victor failed to pull it out with forceps. To incise was
dangerous to the structure of the organ. Tearing the meatus might
give the boy a deformity. Local anesthesia was given. Victor
reached in repeatedly with straight forceps in an attempt to crush
and remove the impacted obstruction, making the stone smaller bit
by bit; for the pressure of the over-full bladder had to be released
very slowly. As he did so, little bits of the stone would fly out like
bullets. Finally, without injury to the urethral opening, he suc¬
ceeded in complete removal, bringing tremendous relief. And
there, to his great delight, was the boy lying on the table, fast
asleep.

Victor finished the surgery in the late afternoon. At eleven that
night he awoke with pain in his left eye. Hastening to the hospital,
he called his compounder, Bennett.

"It's a piece of calcium," Bennett told him with concern, "em¬
bedded in the cornea near the center of vision."

How could it have happened? He had worn his glasses, which
should have protected his eyes; but as the calcium projectile from
the meatal stone piece flew, he must have had his eyes directed
upward. Yet, the cornea being mostly insensitive, he had felt no
pain until five or six hours later. The bit had landed enough off
center in the cornea that it had not affected his sight.

Mrs. Springer came, and she and Bennett tried to remove the
particle without success. Victor drove the more than thirty miles to
Bilaspur. At the mission hospital Dr. Hope Nichoson was also
unsuccessful. At the government hospital Dr. Shehani, the civil
surgeon whom Victor had known in Edinburgh when they had
been fellow students, succeeded in digging out the bit of calcium.

Victor asked for typhoid vaccine to be given him intravenously to
stimulate the healing of the injured cornea more quickly and over¬
come possible infection. The dose resulted, as desired, in chills and

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

125

high fever, and the eye was healed and normal the next day. It was
a narrow escape from one-eyed blindness that would have cut field
of vision and depth of perception, an exceedingly important fa¬
culty for an eye surgeon. Such a loss would have interrupted his
surgical career and might well have ended it altogether.

7

I t was Prabhu Dayal Sukhnandan who suggested that friends of
his at Miraj, the Choudharies, be invited to join the Mungeli
staff. Both Suman and his wife, Daya, were nurses, trained at
Miraj. They came in November 1934, when their first child, Victor,
was just a month old. Son of a pastor in the Swedish mission
church, Suman proved to be not only a devoted Christian but also
an able administrator. He soon took over the duties of nursing
superintendent from Mrs. Springer. Later both he and Daya would
go to Philadelphia and take the course in ophthalmologic nursing
at Wills Eye Hospital.

About a week after their arrival, on December 2, Daya was
attending Louise at the birth of Barbara Louise Rambo. Victor
Choudharie and Barbara occupied bassinets side by side in the
Rambo bungalow and grew into the toddling stage together.

Barbara was born on a Sunday morning, completely disrupting
the Sunday school session. After delivery at the hospital, Louise
was carried with the baby to the bungalow, passing directly behind
the church. The children, outside in the sunshine, were so excited
about the new baby that classes had to be dismissed. Two-year-old
Billy, of course, was the most excited of all.

Like their father before them, the Rambo children had a wealth
of playmates both Indian and Western. Among the latter were the
Gamboe children, Rachael and Alice, the former two years older
than Helen, the latter just her age.

"I don't believe it," Frances Gamboe had exclaimed when in 1923
it was announced in the weekly Indian Witness that a family named
Rambo had arrived in the Disciples Mission. It/ios to be a mistake.
There could never be Rambos and Gamboes in the same mission!"
But there could be and, after the Gamboes were appointed to
Mungeli in 1929, not only were they in the same mission but they
wers also living in the Big Bungalow only a stone's throw from the
Rambos. Homer Gamboe's father and Victor's had been students
together in Lexington College back in 1890. Now Homer was sec-

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

127

retary of the Mungeli station, which included a Christian commu¬
nity of about a thousand and work in nine hundred surrounding
villages.

The names aroused frequent amusement as well as confusion.
Once a man came with a letter and flashed it at Homer, saying, "I
don't know whether this is for Rumbo or Gumbo, but here it is."

Although the children of the two families attended different
boarding schools, the Gamboes going to Woodstock, the American
school in the north, while the two oldest Rambos were at
Kodaikanal in the south, during the two months when their winter
vacations coincided they made the most of their time together. The
four were dubbed the "Gramboes." Helen and Rachael reveled in
the books sent from America by Louise's mother. All three girls
belonged to the Bluebirds, youngest of three Scout groups. It was
considered valuable for the Christian children, both missionary
and Indian, to belong to a worldwide organization that was not
strictly religious. Frances was Bluebird commissioner for the whole
Bilaspur district.

She was also the organizer of the junior church that held services
on Sunday afternoons, conducted in Hindi, in which all four
"Gramboes" were as fluent as they were in English. Victor was one
of the most popular speakers at these services, for he illustrated his
talks with unique features. Once for a "Be Kind to Animals" speech
he brought into the church a little country horse, which remained
on the compound and became a favorite pet, the Rambo children
naming it "Eeyore" out of their beloved Winnie the Pooh.

Victor was adept at imbuing things potentially dull, like ser¬
mons, with excitement. Under his tutelage work became play. He
enlisted the service of all the "Gramboes" as medical aides. They
spent many hours at the hospital, rolling bandages and making
surgical pads; as a reward they were permitted to witness opera¬
tions, and also to receive any worn-out instruments with which
they could play "hospital." They used the Gamboes' big "black
satin" Labrador retriever as their "patient"; it submitted to all sorts
of indignities and wearing of bandages with the utmost grace.
Rachael and Helen were even allowed to hold flashlights for some
of the eye operations, which gave them a delightful sense of
importance.

Victor's insistence on involving children in meaningful activity
had a double purpose. When he had his son Birch work with the
gardener or sit down with the least skilled people in the hospital
making cotton applicators out of small Band-Aid sticks by wrap¬
ping cotton around the ends, he was also teaching both workers
and patients that the most menial work was honorable, education

128

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

and status not excusing one from hard labor. It was a lesson that
many Indians, inured through the centuries to the caste system,
were slow to learn.

The lives of both families were tightly interknit with the hospital.
Its proximity was a boon for more than the birth of a baby. When
Birch received a scout knife from his grandmother and promptly
cut his knee open, the necessary stitches were only a wailing two
minutes away. When Frances Gamboe stepped on the head of a
scorpion in her open-toed sandal and its tail snapped up to sting
her toe, within minutes she had received an injection that, al¬
though not alleviating the pain, prevented permanent injury. It
was the kind of sting that would have killed a baby. Fortunately the
parents did not know of the moonlit nights when the "Gramboes"
crept out of their beds and met by appointment for illicit frolicking
on the tennis court, probably in their bare feet, tender prey for
scorpions or cobras.

Billy, excluded from such exploits, indulged in his own brands of
mischief. Cheerful and cherubic, he was the darling of the com¬
pound. Even Louise in her most despairing moments could not
resist his charms. Once she found him fully clothed, even to shoes,
sitting in the tub that th ebhisti (water carrier) had laboriously filled
with clean water. "Nice bath!" he greeted, looking up into her
horrified face with an angelic smile.

Bereft when the older children were away at boarding school,
Billy was delighted when in 1934 "Ollice" (Alice Gamboe), because
of a temporary heart condition, was obliged to stay out of school,
and he became her shadow. Homer made her a little cart with
bicycle wheels that could be drawn by the children, even Billy, and
she went everywhere with them.

It was vacation time and all the children were in Mungeli when a
thrill occurred, the arrival of the first radio in the Mungeli area. The
machine was run by a car battery, recharged during the weekly
trips to Bilaspur. Often in an evening the living room would be
crowded with a solemn group of Indians, some prominent Hindus
from the basti (town across the river) sitting on the floor and
listening wide-eyed to the miraculous voices and music from far
away. The world, through the BBC, was now minutes instead of
weeks away. London was nearer than Delhi. News of the death of
King George V arrived more promptly than that of a birth in
Bilaspur. Victor, always concerned with world news, tried con¬
stantly to stimulate interest in the children, even Billy.

"Ollice," her small shadow inquired gravely, "you know de
England?"

"Yes, Billy, I know the England."

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

129

He shook his head and announced sadly, "De England died."

Another thrill was the arrival of the Rambos' first mission car, a
1932 Ford. The children soon learned that no expedition in the new
marvel was wholly to get from one place to another. Whenever and
wherever they drove, Victor would keep continual watch of the
passersby, and frequently he would halt and jump out to examine
someone. If he found any who were blind or could not see well, he
would make a spot diagnosis. If they were going in the direction of
the hospital and were willing, he would put them in the car and
take them; otherwise he would urge them to come as soon as
possible, giving a "chit" to make their coming more certain. A
patient was much more likely to go to the hospital if he or she had a
"chit." "Give us a chit and we will be admitted," was the frequent
plea. The villager's faith in a piece of paper with his name on it and
addressed to "the one in charge" was his assurance of entrance
into the place of healing.

Once, seeing a man terribly emaciated and diagnosing his trou¬
ble as an ulcerous obstruction, Victor turned around and took him
to the hospital, immediately performing major surgery on him.
Even on his rare hunting trips, as Birch was to discover when
allowed to accompany his father into the jungles and mountains
surrounding Mungeli, Victor was more interested in finding pa¬
tients than game. The mountains were inhabited by aboriginal
tribes, the Gonds and Baigas. Once, Birch would recall, his father
assembled a whole group of patients and got them to lie on the
ground, examining their abdomens for enlarged spleens due to
malaria and starting treatment for those needing it.

Victor's enjoyment of his children had to be concentrated into a
few months of the year. If there was a sacrifice in a missionary's life,
it did not involve the lack of luxuries like running water, electricity,
and air conditioning. It lay in family separation. When the heat
mounted in March, Victor insisted that Louise take the children to
the hills, where the older ones at that time would be in school. She
would not have gone before Victor for herself; only for the chil¬
dren. It was not an easy trip, for it involved three days of travel
with at least two changes of trains, plus a twenty mile trip across
the plains to the foothills and thirty miles up the mountain. Prepa¬
rations had to be made weeks ahead, including train reserva¬
tions, accommodations for the day and perhaps night in Madras,
food and boiled water for meals on the trains, andclothing for weath¬
er that would range from the sweltering humidity of the plains
to the bracing chill of a seven-thousand-foot-high mountain re¬
sort. Occasionally she would have "travel dreams" of a child lost
in a station, trains missed, or baggage diverted, and they be-

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

came family jokes. She was able sometimes to travel part of the
way with another missionary mother, but because most of the
mission children of the area went to school in the north, she
usually was the only adult.

Although she accepted the journeys with her usual calmness
and steady competence, it was Victor who derived real enjoyment
from travel in India. He did much of it, not only to Kodaikanal but
also to Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay, and Nagpur for mission meetings
and opthalmologic conferences. Always, when alone, he traveled
third class, that anomaly of an Indian train that was not only
overcrowded with people, sometimes hanging to the sides and
protruding from the windows, but also loaded with a conglomera¬
tion of their baggage, chickens, goats, bicycles, and any other
possessions that could be crammed in. In such a setting Victor was
in his element. It required ingenuity just to find standing room in
one of those compartments, but he always managed. The six-foot-
tall, distinguished-looking foreigner would be helped into the
melee, and within minutes he would have the total strangers from
the villages rocking with laughter and insisting on giving him their
seats. If it was an overnight trip, they would often empty a full
luggage bench for him to sleep on.

The Rambos refused to put the children into boarding school
until after the second grade, and even then, after Victor left in June,
Louise often stayed in their rented cottage in Kodai until late
August or early September. She wanted them to have the security
of home as long as possible. Victor was able to take only a month or
six weeks of vacation in the hottest season, and the weeks of their
absence seemed long indeed.

"It is only thirty-six days about," he wrote his mother one day in
late August, "until the big girl and the bairns come down from the
hills. It's a long time this 95 days of waiting for them."

Even in the three winter months of their school vacation, Victor's
grueling schedule permitted little interplay with his children. He
was up early, rushing to the hospital. He would rush home for
lunch around 1:30 or 2:00, lie down for a refreshing half hour, and
then return to the hospital for work until early evening. His brief
bouts of recreation were equally vigorous, hard-fought tennis
matches in the evening and occasional hunting trips. Occasionally
in the night he would awake, light a kerosene latern, and sit in his
big chair in the living room, reading his Bible or medical journals.
Then a child might awake to find him kneeling beside his or her
bed, praying silently or in a whisper that each one would choose
the right kind of life.

And even his idea of a vacation was not relaxation but constant.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

131

exuberant activity. It was a month of much excitement with the
children. Sometimes they all went camping to Green Hut, about
twelve miles from Kodai, where there was a stone house with
kitchen, dining room, and two bedrooms—no furniture, just
rooms. They took their own bedding and on arrival went to the
hillside and cut armfuls of bracken for mattresses.

Only once would his son Birch remember a holiday at Kodai
when his father appeared to be sunk in depression and even then
his reaction was more rather than less exertion. He bought an axe,
joined himself to a group of coolies who were felling forest trees,
and went out every day to chop wood with them.

"Occupational therapy," he explained grimly. Birch was to find
out later from Harry Tiedeck that the depression was caused by a
famine in the Mungeli area. Victor had refused to eat properly
when so many around him were hungry, and he had doubtless
depleted his strength as well as his mental well-being.

On the plains he occasionally took the children hunting, and as
they grew older he taught them to be extremely careful with guns.
Once he failed to follow his own advice. He had taken his loaded
gun to the front verandah for some reason and was standing with it
pointed at the cement pavement. Birch was having his mandatory
rest period in the front bedroom, with the screen door between
him and the verandah. Somehow, as Victor turned to enter the
house the gun went off, the shot making a hole in the cement floor,
then ricocheting through the screen door, lacerating one of the
panels, and splattering on the wall over Birch's head.

Another mistake with a gun almost got him into more serious
trouble. The big gray Langur monkeys were a great nuisance on
the compound. They would often climb into the trees in the garden
fifteen yards from the house, make a game of removing the tiles
from the roof, pillage fruits and vegetables, and, like the crows,
steal food off a table on the unscreened verandah. But because of
the legendary Hanuman, brave king of the monkeys, Hindus
considered them too sacred to kill. Driven to exasperation, Victor
would occasionally venture to shoot one early in the morning,
having a hole already dug and burying the victim immediately (all
but the head with the eyes, which he would use for practicing a
new operation).

Once, however, he was tempted beyond endurance, and not
early in the morning. One of the big, gray pests, more daring than
most, swung down to the verandah where he was engrossed in
reading, seized a banana from his hand, and fled. It was too much.
Victor went for his shotgun and pursued. Safe in a tree, the
monkey chattered down at him, all but thumbing its nose. Victor

132

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

fired, intending only to scare the beast away, but his aim was too
good. He killed it. One of the pellets fell down close to a prominent
Hindu at the riverside behind the house, perhaps a hundred yards
away. Hearing the shot and the pellet fall and feeling his life had
been endangered, the man came indignantly to the house, display¬
ing the pellet wrapped in a handkerchief. Finding the monkey
killed, his indignation could have been thorny. A crowd gathered,
and for a time Victor's excellent rapport with the Hindu commu¬
nity seemed in jeopardy. Thanks to his genuine regret and profuse
apologies, however, he was reluctantly forgiven.

Perhaps the very lack of constant association with his children
colored their rare adventures with brighter hues. Certainly for each
child some shared experiences would be etched indelibly in mem¬
ory. For Barbara there was a night during Diwali, the Hindu Festi¬
val of Lamps. She and Bill were ready for bed in their pajamas.
Daddy came home late and said, "Let's all go and see the lights in
the bazaar." Mother was surprised and so were the children, but all
were delighted. They put on their bathrobes, jumped in the car,
and drove into fairyland. Windows, doors, verandahs, housetops
— all were outlined with little clay pots filled with oil and set alight.
They waved to the storekeepers they knew and shouted namaste.

And she would always remember one Christmas. It was the
custom on such holidays to share special goodies. People would
come to the house bringing cakes, cookies, and other sweets. That
day it was raining. Instead of the usual dust—light, fine, and
brown around one's ankles—there was mud several inches deep.
How could they deliver the goodies? "You may go barefoot,"
decided Daddy. It was a forbidden luxury because of danger from
hookworm except in houses right around their house. They took
off their shoes, walked in the delicious mud, delivered their
goodies, and then returned home to wash their feet.

Billy would always remember how at age five he triumphantly
brought his father a wonderful thing he had found, a double
banana. When Victor's only response was to open the fruit and eat
it, the boy burst into tears. Penitent, realizing too late his son's
interest in the rarity, Victor jumped on his bicycle, rode to the
bazaar, and came back bearing a triple banana, over which they
marveled together. Nor would Billy forget the time when they
went to visit another missionary in Bilaspur and found a nurses'
meeting in progress, with several dozen sandals paired on the
porch outside the door. "Let's mix them up," he suggested, and
Victor promptly agreed. When the meeting broke up, father and
son gleefully witnessed the consternation, laughter, and mad
scramble.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

133

Birch would remember going with Dad into the town on Hindu
holidays when it was the custom to visit the officials, take gifts,
have tea with them, and pass the time of day. Dad would eat the
spices offered to him but never accept pan , the little three-cornered
leaf delicacy containing betel nut, which stained the teeth red. He
was as rigidly opposed to its use as he was to tobacco smoking. Yet
when Birch experimented with the habit he was mild in his disap¬
proval, revealing an innate sympathy with boyish pranks, and
probably also an awareness that the boy would not enjoy having
his teeth colored red.

All Birch's memories would not be so happy. There was the time
he played the part of Huckleberry Finn in a school play, returning
home with all the pride of an acclaimed Thespian after a night of
glory.

"Don't take the crowd's plaudits too seriously," his father said,
pricking the inflated bubble. "Of course they complimented you,
realizing it was the performance of a ninth grader. Don't get the
idea you can become a real actor."

For Helen there was a trip to Calcutta, just Daddy and herself,
when they stayed with a wonderful old lady named Mrs. Lee who
had her groom and horse and carriage ride her to the zoo. Two
memories of the trip would remain with her always: riding like a
princess in a chariot to the clop , clop , clop rhythm of the horses; and
having Daddy for once all to herself.

But a shorter trip would be even more memorable. Victor and
several of the Indian staff were going out to shoot ducks on a
village "tank," a small reservoir, several miles off the road; and to
her delight she and some of the other children were allowed to
accompany them. As they walked along the raised boundary be¬
tween two fields, she saw a farmer guiding his single-bladed plow
along a furrow. When he saw them coming, he suddenly left his
bullock and hurried along the path to meet them, brown face
radiant and smiling, eyes bright behind a most incongruous pair of
steel-rimmed spectacles. He knelt down, bowed his head, and
lifted his hands in the Indian gesture of worship before Daddy,
who raised him up in joyful recognition — an old patient whose
sight he had restored.

"Namaste, brother! God loves you!"

There on the dusty path the hunter, suddenly all doctor, checked
the villager's eyes, his vision, his glasses, and his general health,
giving him as patient and painstaking attention as if they had met
in the hospital. While the others shifted impatiently, for it was
approaching dusk, Helen watched closely, realizing in her childish
way that here was a scene she should always remember. Only later

134

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

would she see it in its true perspective, a tiny scene typical of her
father's entire character and life.

In 1936 a much longer journey was in prospect, demanding from
Louise far more extended preparation than the annual trips to and
from Kodai. Victor, always in command of every situation, would
be in charge. However, his concerns were large-scale—passports,
ships, stopovers, hospitals, and dignitaries to be visited; whereas
hers were mundane but multitudinous—clothes for a family of six
journeying from the tropics through winter into spring, toys and
books on a long sea voyage for four children ranging in age from
two to twelve, Indian mementos for relatives and friends, and
other innumerable details.

They left on furlough in November, a year earlier than planned
because Victor had been suffering an unexplained loss of weight,
and a period of relaxation was recommended. Barbara celebrated
her second birthday in Yokohama. In Claremont, California, the
family settled for the winter at Pilgrim Place, close to Victor's
mother and Aunt Flora, who were now living together in their
retirement, and to old friends Louis and Louise Bentley, who had
long been supporters of the work in Mungeli. For six months
Louise devoted herself to the care of the four children. It was a
winter of threatened destruction of the orange groves, and smudge
pots with crude oil and old car tires burned night after night.
Barbara, a born climber frequently found on top of the porch or
portico, looked like a moving smudge pot herself, sooted from toes
to eyebrows. Even without bathtubs and running water, Louise
preferred the dust and mud of India.

As usual the children from Kodaikanal school were ahead of
American pupils in their studies, and Birch's problem was too fast
advancement. He seemed likely to complete two grades in one.

"Don't let him," advised Victor's old playmate Grace McGavran,
who had become a specialist in child training. "Take him to the
Y.M.C. A. and ask them to work out a program of physical educa¬
tion and teamwork suited to his age."

They did so, and an understanding secretary performed won¬
ders for the thirteen-year-old boy in teamwork and physical de¬
velopment.

Meanwhile, Victor traveled throughout the Northwest, speak¬
ing in churches, visiting hospitals, and taking medical study. At
the midwinter course of ophthalmology in Los Angeles he met Dr.
Arthur Jones of Boise, Idaho.

"I need help," he told Victor, offering payment of the family's
travel expenses to Boise and the use of a car, a house, and every
facility in the office, plus, of course, a substantial stipend. Louise

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

135

joined Victor there after schools closed. Boise was full of excite¬
ment. Helen enjoyed Dr. Jones's fine riding horses. For Victor it
was a rewarding time, learning new techniques from a successful
team of doctors and finding that he could contribute new skills to
these sophisticated doctors through his experience with trachoma
and cataract patients, having done scores of times more cataract
operations than any surgeon in America had had opportunity to
do. He discovered also that private practice in America was incred¬
ibly profitable compared to a missionary's salary. When urged to
remain, he was almost tempted. It might be better, he thought, to
provide funds for a new hospital in India, for training dozens of
Indian doctors, and for buying the most up-to-date equipment
than to furnish one doctor's labor. But of course he did not seri¬
ously consider the possibility. He had already committed his life.

That summer, for further experience, he attended the Edward
Jackson Eye Course given by the Colorado Ophthalmic Society.
One day he was invited to dinner by Dr. James Morrison, then a
resident at Colorado General Hospital in Denver.

"You'll be our first dinner guest since our marriage," confessed
the young doctor.

Delighted and, as usual, careless of conventions, Victor took
along a quart of ice cream, explaining that he loved this delicacy
and always bought it when in the States. Long afterward, after
years of correspondence, when the two met at a meeting in Brus¬
sels, Dr. Morrison again invited him to dinner.

"Sure," agreed Victor with a grin, "if I can bring the ice cream."

In the fall the Rambos moved on to Philadelphia, staying with
Louise's mother through the winter and spring. While Louise took
college courses toward the degree sacrificed to early marriage,
Victor spoke constantly in churches, impressing his audiences not
only with his contagious enthusiasm but also with his unforgetta¬
ble, sometimes startling bursts of spontaneity. One young woman
would always remember her introduction to this unexpectedness.

It was at a Christmas service in a church in Philadelphia. Victor
was asked if he would come forward and say a.few words. She
would never forget his striding up the aisle, making a sort of
humming noise as he went. Arriving at the pulpit, he stretched his
long arms high and wide; his face was radiant with an almost
angelic fervor.

"Merry Christmas, Jesus!" he cried. "I'm so happy to be here this
morning and greet You on Your birthday."

One of Victor's greatest concerns was the infection that crept into
a few of his intraocular operative eyes. He agonized over such
patients, knowing it would have been better if they had never

136

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

come for operations. It did not matter if the patient and his family
attached no blame to the surgeon, saying, if he was a Hindu, "You
could not help it. Doctor. It was his Karma"; or if a Muslim, "It was
his Kismet." He felt no less anguish. To a specialist in eyes in India,
to lose an eye was almost like losing a life. He wanted to find out
what the new sulfa drugs could do for such infections. He went to
Boston, hoping to study with Dr. Frederick Verhoef, a noted re¬
searcher and ophthalmologist.

"And what are your plans for research?" asked the specialist.

"We have been losing about one in a hundred of the eyes we
operate on for cataract through infection," Victor told him. "I have
read of the effect of sulfanilimide on the restraining of infections,
but I have not found where a methodical study has been done on
its effect on the eye. Does it go into the eye itself or not? And if so,
how much? I would like to experiment with its effect on rabbits."

Dr. Verhoef nodded approvingly. Once Victor adjusted himself
to language reminiscent of Indian gali and the profanity of the
Wyoming ditchdiggers, as well as a barrage of tobacco smoke—
two of his pet aversions—he could size up his new mentor as one
of the kindest, most reasonable, and most honest men he had ever
known, as well as one of the finest ophthalmologists of the first half
of the twentieth century. He worked closely with Victor, providing
him with every facility available. If Victor needed chemical assis¬
tance, there was the general hospital close by. When he needed
more rabbits, they were available. If he wanted to stay all night to
observe the effect of the drug at stated hours, a room was provided
for him. And at the end of the study the two produced a paper that
was a valued addition to knowledge of the sulfas' entrance into the
body as defense against infection and the methods necessary when
antibiotics had to be tested.

While in Boston, Victor lived with a cousin of Louise, Spencer
Steinmetz, a man of prominence who introduced him to the city's
social life. At his insistence Victor reluctantly bought his first dress
suit, dinner jacket and pants with a silk stripe up the sides, and
vest, shirt, and tie to harmonize. Fed at Emily Steinmetz's table
with Boston's most nourishing viands—lobsters, baked beans,
and oysters wrapped in bacon and roasted on a stick—he gained
back all the pounds he had ever lost and more. It was a happy
climax to the furlough.

The Rambos sailed in the spring of 1938 from New York to
Rotterdam on the maiden voyage of the New Amsterdam and spent
two weeks at Noordwijk aan Zee, with side trips to Leyden and
Amsterdam. Helen was enthralled when Victor took her with him
up the Rhine by train to Schaffhausen to visit the Grieshabers.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

137

Whenever he needed an instrument sharpened, Victor sent it to
Johan Grieshaber and his sons, the company that created the finest
eve instruments in the world. Always it would come back with a
modest bill and perhaps a statement like this: "We have found that
the steel of knife number so-and-so cannot take a sufficiently keen
edge, so we are replacing this with one of our new knives with our
compliments." It was a journey of contrasts, Gestapo severity and
suspicion on one side, and on the other the consideration and
warmth of railroad employees and the kindly hospitality of Johan
Grieshaber and his wife and two sons.

From Rotterdam the Rambos sailed on the Dutch ship Baloeran to
Colombo, arriving at the end of June and bringing from Holland
not only the memory of windmills and tulips but also a case of
chicken pox. Birch had caught the disease from some children
while boarding at Rotterdam. While Victor remained in quarantine
with Birch in Colombo, Louise went on to Kodai, expecting to have
three more cases on her hands. Fortunately there was none. After
leaving Birch at Kodai, Victor went on, not to Mungeli but to
Bilaspur, where he was to take Dr. Hope Nichoson's place during
her year of furlough, directing the hospital there but spending two
days each week in Mungeli. It was a year of marking time, postpon¬
ing the extension of the eye program for which he had ambitious
plans. He chafed at the delay.

Yet the work in the Bilaspur hospital was challenging, and he
expended all his energy in giving it his most enthusiastic effort. As
in Mungeli, he was never able to keep pace with all the demands on
his time and interests.

"I remember his sudden ideas and inspirations," Ruth Mitchell,
the nursing superintendent, would recall, and often his disap¬
pointment when it wasn't possible to do all that he would like to
have had done immediately. I remember how absorbed he used to
get with whatever he was doing at the time. Appointments for
lectures—even for surgery—were often forgotten. We would find
him deeply concerned for some patient in the clinic and the patient
obviously receiving spiritual blessing along with his physical heal¬
ing. When called he would answer rather absently, 'Yes, Honey, I
am coming within five minutes,' and promptly forget the prom-
ise."

She would never forget one incident. A little girl was admitted
with a very high fever that was not responding to treatment. The
assistant doctor who was filling the need for a month in Doctor
Nichoson's absence said she thought nothing more could be done
for the child. She would doubtless die soon. Miss Mitchell decided
to send a note to Victor, who was living about a half mile from the

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

hospital. She told him what the assistant doctor had said and said
that she thought she should report it even though it was his rest
time. If she was disturbing him unnecessarily, she was sorry. Victor
came immediately.

"Have I ever refused to see a patient you thought needed me?" he
scolded her.

Then he worked with the sick child continuously for the next five
hours, and they had the joy of seeing her recover. Twenty years
later Miss Mitchell, meeting the child's mother, would exchange a
warm smile with her as both remembered that day. After that,
whenever she felt impatient with Victor's impulsive demands for
some impossible thing to be produced at once, she would recall
how he had looked while concentrating his brilliant mind and
skillful hands on the healing of that little patient.

Louise remained with the children at Kodai, and it was during
those prewar years that Helen and Birch began to appreciate fully
the superior attributes of their mother. Her knowledge and intel¬
lectual curiosity covered almost any subject they were studying.
Birch could not remember asking her the meaning of a word
without receiving a clear definition. She had read to them from
babyhood, stretching their minds from fairy tales and Bible stories
to works of history and science, including introduction to her
favorite Agatha Christie novels and other mysteries. Always
deeply concerned with world events, she helped them understand
the problems of the Hitler years, giving a Christian and humane
interpretation, shrewdly analyzing the political leaders and their
decisions. She made sure they understood their faith, helping
them develop into evangelical Christians but with open minds,
unfettered by the small legalisms that many Christians seemed to
have.

"She had an ability to absorb knowledge," Louise's classmate
"Bidge" was to tell Birch much later. "I believe she is the most
intelligent person I have ever met"—a statement that would have
elicited shocked and horrified denial from the self-effacing Louise.

October 1938 found the Rambos together again in Bilaspur. The
"Gramboes" were also reunited, for by a happy coincidence
Homer Gamboe and his family were once more living in a house
just across the road. Once more they became an adventurous team,
augmented now by the children of Donald McGavran, tearing
around the compound on their bicycles; touring the bazaar, where
they sat for hours, watching a friendly goldsmith spin out threads
from silver and gold bars and make the most delicate filigree
jewelry; and visiting the hospital, where in their attempts to help
they made themselves unpopular with the nurses. The latter might

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

139

have been less disturbed could they have looked forward and seen
the result of these hospital experiences, Rachael earning a degree
in nursing from Western Reserve and Helen one in science from
Wilson College.

It was the young Rambos who stored up the most vivid mem¬
ories of Bilaspur. Barbara, set to guard the food on the breakfast
table, endured agonies trying vainly to keep the crows from
swooping down and stealing th echappatis. They were too clever for
her. It was much more fun to watch the milkman bring his buffalo
cow with its calf to the kitchen door to be milked, making sure that
he did not dilute the milk with water.

It was Helen who had the most exciting adventure during these
Bilaspur months. The McGavrans had just returned from fur¬
lough, and their three children were begging for an outing in the
jungle. Rachael, Alice, Helen, and Birch all went along for a
three-day trip into the heart of the forest, real tiger country.

One morning Rachael, Helen Rambo, and Helen McGavran
were left at the camp in the care of the Gamboes' cook, Prem, while
all the others went hunting in the jungle for tigers. After an early
lunch the girls started out for a walk near the camp, taking with
them a shikari (guide) and a .22 caliber rifle. Helen McGavran was
carrying the rifle. They were walking along the crest of a low ridge
when Helen McGavran, who was in front, screamed. She had
almost stepped on an eight-foot-long python, curled up in the
path.

"Shoot it!" cried Helen Rambo. But the other Helen was so
unnerved by the shock that she just stood, the rifle dangling from
her hands.

"Give it to me," ordered Helen Rambo. "I'll shoot it, but first
youTl have to tell me how to fire it." She had never fired a .22,
although Victor had trained all his children in the use of other
guns.

"No!" protested the shikari in horror, for he belonged to a tribe
that considered the snake sacred. Probably also he alone realized
the danger of attacking such an adversary, whose lightning-swift
coils could easily squeeze the life out of a body three times the size
of a slight fifteen-year-old. But his warnings fell on deaf ears.

Helen crept up as close as she could to be sure not to miss. She
fired straight at its head, and it started writhing, circling all around
her. Seizing the bamboo stick she had been carrying, she struck at
its head whenever it appeared in its twistings. Finally she managed
to get the head down, put the gun barrel hard against it, and shoot.
The excitement of the hunt was in her blood and allayed all fear.
Now that it was dead, she wanted to get it back to camp so they

140

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

could show off their trophy. They gave the gun to the shikari ,
straightened the snake's body as best they could, and, all three
girls lifting it, started for the camp. It was still a writhing mass, and
they had to lay it down several times to straighten out the coils.

Only when they met several Indian women, one of whom threw
up her hands in horror and cried, "Ai-oh\ Don't you know such
snakes are poison?" did Helen sense that she had been in danger.
Remembering its head, writhing all around her ankles, she nearly
fainted. The python was not poisonous, of course, but its coils
could have been even more deadly than venom. When they got
back to camp, the hunting parties had returned, and the seven
teen-agers were able to hold the trophy down while the men
skinned it. They extracted the liver, which looked like a hot dog,
and cut off a steak or two so all could brag that they had eaten
python. When the carcass was thrown aside it continued to writhe,
and even the next day, when only a little flesh was left on the
skeleton, it was still moving feebly. Helen took the skin home in
triumph, salted and dried it, and sent it for curing. Forty years later
it would still be a prized possession.

When Victor heard of the exploit, however, pride in his offspring
was mingled with shock and guilt. Had he succeeded in teaching
his children the safe use of guns but failed to educate them in
equally dangerous hazards? He hastened to tell them the story of
how, when in childhood, he had seen the python in the path, had
backed up, and, taking a flying leap and clearing it by several feet,
had run home as fast as his legs could carry him.

But no warning could have protected Barbara from a danger she
experienced in early childhood. The family was driving from
Mungeli to Bilaspur for shopping and other business and had left
her with the McGavrans. She was four or five years old. Wanting to
entertain her, the hostess gave her a bucket of toys to play with.
Sitting on the verandah, the child pulled them out one after the
other, examining each one intently. Presently she grasped an object
and pulled at it—pulled and pulled. It kept coming; not a toy, but a
live snake three feet long. Fortunately it was limp and sleepy,
doubtless as surprised as she was. She threw it from her and
jumped up, crying out. Servants came running, whacked it with a
club, and killed it. She had had a narrow escape, for it was a krait,
an extremely venomous snake.

During the months they were in Bilaspur, Europe was plunging
into tragedy. It all seemed very far away until in August 1939 a
refugee family came to the mission station. One day in Kodaikanal
Victor met Rudolph Elsberg, a graduate of the medical school of
Bologna University in Italy, who had fled from the Nazi persecu-

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

141

tion. He was staying with the Rosenthals, not far from where the
Rambos were living at Association Hill. He had no place to go and
was despondent because he had no work after all his preparation.
He had become a Catholic and married a Catholic girl from Italy.
There were plans for her to follow him to India.

"Come with me," Victor offered heartily, trusting his committee
to provide the necessary funds. He came, and when the move was
made back to Mungeli, Rudolph and his wife, Bruna, became part
of the Rambo household and remained there two years. He picked
up the language quickly and had a keen medical mind as well as
thorough training. His wife gave valuable assistance by instructing
the nursing students in her specialty, massage. Victor would gladly
have kept them on permanently in the mission, but the board
refused to consider it, and Dr. Elsberg moved on to do heroic
service with the British army.

Even after the war began in late 1939, the problems of India
seemed of greater concern to Victor than those of France and
England. The struggle for independence activated for many years
by Gandhi's technique of nonviolent resistance was at white-hot
heat. When war was declared, Britain had taken the country into
the conflict by proclamation and without consultation. Indian
nationalists resented this presumptuous action. Indians would
gladly join with other free nations in defense, but only by their own
choice and as a free nation. Tensions were high between all sorts of
groups—Hindus and Muslims, some of whom were agitating for a
separate state; Indians and Britons; and Britons and Americans,
many of whom were in sympathy with the independence move¬
ment.

Victor, although keenly interested in world events, was not
involved in politics. He was far more concerned with bringing
sight to India's blind than with freeing the country from foreign
domination. A visit he had made to Wardha, Gandhi's ashram, had
been disappointing. The Mahatma had not responded to his plea
for emphasis on village health, perhaps necessarily, for he had the
colossal task of molding the will of his country to nonviolent
resistance. They presented a curious contrast, the scrawny little
Indian in his loincloth, squatting crosslegged on his cotton rug,
and the tall, lanky American; yet they were much alike. Both were
intense lovers of India, each obsessed by a single if differing objec¬
tive for her welfare: one by political independence for her five
hundred million people; the other by sight for her five million
curable blind.

It was a relief to be back full-time in Mungeli, but Victor felt more
frustration than satisfaction in what he was able to accomplish.

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Out of the five million, the hundreds whose sight he was able to
restore seemed pitifully small. Just in the 250 surrounding villages
there were thousands of blind needing surgery, yet there was no
time and not enough staff to bring them in.

Dayal Sukhnandan went to America in 1939, leaving Philip
James in his place. He left Bombay on the last Italian ship to make
the trip to Europe. Before he arrived in the States, war had
erupted, and three years would pass before he could return. Al¬
though Victor rejoiced at Dayal's opportunity to study, having
made it possible himself through the Rambo Committee, he
missed him sorely. Once more he was the only surgeon in Mungeli.

In these years of their third term, the Rambos noted time as B.T.
and A.T., "Before Tom" and "After Tom." On August 28, 1940,
their youngest child, Thomas Clough, was bom in Ranipet, in a
hospital founded by Dr. Lewis Scudder, a cousin of Dr. Ida. It was
Dr. Galen Scudder, son of Dr. Lewis, who brought the newcomer
into the world.

On the heels of the increase in family came its first break. In
March 1941, Victor went with Helen to Bombay to see her off to
college in America. There was worry as well as sense of loss in the
parting, for travel was attended by wartime danger. She had a
six-week sail around the Cape of Good Hope, every long day
seeming to bear her farther into the coldness and strangeness of
winter. She felt desolate and deserted until she discovered in her
Bible reading the verse, "When my father and my mother let me
down, then the Lord will take me up." She landed in New York at
the end of April. Riding with Grandmother Birch on the train to
Philadelphia, she felt the strangeness lessen at the sight of the new,
tender leaves of spring, like Indian jungle trees.

There was cultural shock also, especially in language. Indian
English, British-born, was not like American. She could under¬
stand words yet miss their meaning. American slang was com¬
pletely unintelligible. And all the girls she met looked so stylishly
dressed and groomed. She knew suddenly that the suit made by
the Mungeli darzi looked hopelessly out-of-fashion.

That summer Helen studied for college entrance, took the exams
and passed, and qualified to enter Wilson College that fall. Thanks
to Margaret Haines, she also attended a young people's conference
at Keswick, New Jersey, an experience of such spiritual enrichment
that she spent the next summer there waiting on tables. Yet in spite
of grandmother, new friends, and a more vital Christian faith, the
four years of college were painful and difficult.

Oceans and continents could never sever the young Rambos
from family roots. Louise saw to that. Her letters followed them

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

143

regularly wherever they went, whether to Kodai, America, or,
later, to Ethiopia and Zaire. Victor, no less loving and caring,
nonetheless had little time to write. He would scrawl on the back of
Mother's letters, "Hello from Dad Vic," "Love," "Be good," or
"Praying for you."

It was Louise, too, who unified the family in Mungeli. Victor was
the high-powered engine, tuned to maximum voltage, sparked by
flaring ideas and plans that, if uncontrolled, might have resulted in
bumed-out bearings. Louise was the balance wheel, holding the
mechanism in check, toning to moderation.

"Dad is very good at taking care of patients," commented Bill
astutely at age ten or twelve, "but he doesn't seem to be so good at
running things."

Victor was an all-out person, euphoric in expending energy,
whether jigging, fencing, smashing tennis balls, or doing the
strenuous exercises recommended by Gene Tunney in a Reader's
Digest article wherever he happened to be, sometimes to the in¬
tense embarrassment of his children. He was the visionary, the
ebullient planner of large enterprise; Louise was the practical
analyst who weighed all aspects of a problem. "Now, Victor," she
would say, curbing some excess of energy in the same calm tone
that adjured Billy to come down from the high branches of a nim
tree.

They frequently disagreed and sometimes argued, to the dis¬
tress of young Barbara, who at such times shrank into an uneasy
silence. Only later would she realize that her mother had to express
her varying opinions for self-preservation, that otherwise she
could not have survived his strong personality and remained the
competent and confident person she was. She would also come to
realize that Victor wanted and needed this steadying complement
to his boundless energy and exuberance. The practical argument
did not always prevail, however. Louise sometimes protested over
Victor's largesse to every chance visitor with a hard-luck story.
Again and again there would be the shuffling step on the veran¬
dah, the little cough announcing the person's presence, the sad
tale of need, and Victor's invariable response with money that
could be ill spared. Somehow the visitor usually managed to arrive
during his brief sojourns at home.

"How do you know," she would frequently inquire, "that so and
so [it might be a student, an unemployed Indian, or even a West¬
erner] isn't a deadbeat, taking advantage of your reputation for
handouts?"

"I don't," was the gist of his reply. "If they use what I give them
in an unfortunate way, that's their responsibility, mine only to

144

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

comply with Christian teaching." Surely, he reminded with a
twinkle, she could not object if someone asked him for his coat and
he gave his cloak also. But Louise could and did. It depended on
what the man was going to do with the cloak, she retorted. If he
was going to sit around in it when he should be working. . . .

Victor applied the same philosophy to occasional use of free
service at the hospital by people who could well afford to pay. One
day when he was about five miles out on the road beyond Mungeli,
he met a Brahmin who had been a friend of the work for many
years.

"Nattiaskar!" they greeted each other simultaneously.

"Sahib," the Brahmin said, "I just met so and so [He gave the
name]. He's the rich head man of a village. I gave him a tongue
lashing. Do you know what this man who has so many stores of
grain in his house that he does not know what to do with it said to
me? He said, T have just been to the Christian hospital in Mungeli,
and I pretended not to have anything and wore my oldest clothes.
Do you know I have wonderfully restored sight, and they did not
charge me anything, and I even got my food free from their store
for the poor/1 told him off. 'You son of an owl/1 said, 'why did you
cheat the Sahib who was so good to everybody that he looked after
you free? And you took the food meant for the poor! This is
inexcusable. You should go right home and take a sack of nice rice
or wheat and give it to the hospital in thankfulness for your sight. I
order you to/ "

"Thank you, brother," said Victor. "I understand how you feel.
But we would rather be cheated forty times over than disallow
treatment or inflict continued suffering on a poor person who
really needs our help. Those who cheat us are few, but the poor
who cannot afford to pay us are too many to count."

War raged in Europe and the Pacific and tensions mounted
between India and Britain, but Victor continued his work with few
interruptions. Because Mungeli was a remote spot in the country,
military men would occasionally go there for convalescence or a
brief vacation. It was a welcome diversion for the missionaries as
well as the soldiers, bringing a fresh breath from the world outside.
Two were British anti-aircraft gunners; but, Victor discovered,
even men who had shot down airplanes had problems shooting in
Indian forests.

Victor and another missionary, Franklin White, took these two
out on a hunt. By noon a chital (spotted deer) had been shot by the
party, so there was meat to take back. Franklin had gone ahead
with the airmen, and Victor and the rest of the party were following
with the game. It was noon, no time for an animal to be seen, but a

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

145

big, spotted deer buck had gone to drink and was on his way back
to the forest. One of the airmen had a .303 Savage rifle, the other a
12 gauge shotgun. The deer came from the lake at their right and
went by them within fifteen feet. The rifle went off time and again.
The shotgun was fired, reloaded, and used again. Franklin found
that the only safe place was lying flat in the ditch because the shots
were going off in all directions. The last they saw of the buck, he
was in perfect condition, retreating into the woods, lifting his heels
in a parting kick before disappearing. The airmen enjoyed the
laugh at their expense, but not as much as the missionaries.

"Pure buck fever," Victor consoled. "Tve done the same thing in
Wyoming."

It was Louise who became more personally involved with dif¬
ficulties resulting from the war. In 1942 the Japanese navy
threatened to attack southern India. On her way to Kodai with
Tommy in early April, the train pulled into Madras station in a
blackout, coolies traveling through the dimness with their head¬
loads of baggage while guided by lanterns. They were able to ride
through the darkened streets in a tonga and reach the Y.W.C. A. in
safety, where they had reserved accommodations for the night.
Arriving in Kodai, she had no sooner taken the children out of
boarding school and installed them in her rented cottage than she
learned that Americans had been three times advised by the consu¬
late to leave southern India for the north. All was pandemonium.
The school started spring vacation early and, somewhat reluc¬
tantly, families who had homes in the north left Kodai.

Louise and the children started in a group of about fifteen, with
two Kodai teachers. Because the coastal route, via Madras, was
considered dangerous, they had to go by Erode, Bangalore, and
Secunderabad to Nagpur, where Victor met them.

"Why?" he demanded, mystified by their return. In the Mungeli
area there had been no hint of alarm. After three weeks of blister¬
ingly hot "vacation," they were able to return to Kodai and school
was again in session. Later they learned that the rumor was by no
means unfounded. That April Colombo had been bombed by the
Japanese, and soon after they left there had been a bombing of
Madras. The whole area had been swept by panic. Word had come
that the Japanese fleet was steaming northward, and the city had
begun evacuating. But some development had turned them away,
and the attack of India had been averted.

During these days of extreme tension, in spite of his status as a
Westerner and his friendliness with British officials, Victor con¬
tinued to enjoy the confidence and friendship of even those In¬
dians most closely associated with the independence movement.

146

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

He had almost always been on the best of terms with the Hindu
community. There were rare occasions when the very nature of his
work brought him into conflict with the age-old tenets of Hin¬
duism. Once an Indian came to the door of the bungalow. He was
tall and gaunt, his face was badly pockmarked, and his forehead
was smeared with the trident-shaped mark of the god Vishnu. He
announced his presence with a rasping cough and, when Victor
appeared, began railing at him.

"Doctor Sahib, people praise you for taking out cataracts, but I
say you are doing them harm, depriving them of their due penance
in this, their present incarnation. You think you are doing them
good by taking away their blindness? Ji-nahin, no. You give them
sight now, and they must be blind in the next life. Let them alone."
Turning, he stalked away. There had been no personal animosity in
his denunciation, certainly no threat. Like an Old Testament pro¬
phet, he had delivered his message and, duty fulfilled, retired with
dignity.

There were times when the beliefs of Hinduism, expecially those
relating to caste, almost jeopardized the results of Victor's surgery.
This happened once during his first term when a man named
Anjori appeared in the hospital with no one to care for him. He had
almost a one hundred percent chance of getting good vision in both
eyes, and Victor operated on his cataracts. When there was no one
at hand to cook the food and care for the patient, as in this case,
there were always people in the Christian community willing to
come in and care for his essential needs for a pittance of money. But
at that time watching every minute was impossible and usually not
necessary. This patient was so quiet and cooperative that Victor
had no worries. The next day the eyes were dressed. Anjori would
not take anything to eat or drink, even milk. The third morning,
when Victor made his rounds the patient was not in his bed, not in
the ward, and not in the toilet. His thick sheet, his dhus, was folded
carefully on the mattress filled with kodo straw on the galvanized
iron bed. A neatly rolled bandage and two eye pads lay on the dhus .

"He rose early this morning," said the patient in the next bed. "If
he stayed, he said, he would certainly eat the Sahib's food, for he
had offered it kindly and he was getting very hungry and thirsty,
but he had never eaten any food prepared by any other caste than
his own. And he had never taken away anything that did not
belong to him, so he would not take away his bandages."

Victor fumed helplessly. He scolded the attendants of the pa¬
tients in the other beds, but they only responded, "Kyah karen?
What could one do? He wanted to go." And one night watchman

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

147

for 150 patients could hardly keep track of a man who wanted to
walk away.

About six weeks later Victor met Anjori in the marketplace. His
former patient grinned sheepishly. Both his eyes were quite per¬
fect, although without glasses his vision was not thoroughly useful
for detail. The incision was fully healed. Pupils were round, central
and reacting, anterior chambers well formed, corneas clear. And
these were the days before stitches were used, just a careful and
tender replacement of the cornea and the conjunctival flap. Victor
offered to give him glasses if he would come to the hospital, but he
never came. And he had not broken caste.

Are we keeping the patients bandaged too long? Victor wondered.
Could we let them go home sooner than the eight days we are keeping
than? Given the usual conditions found in village India, he de¬
cided not to release patients sooner.

Even the Indian students who came to work under him were not
wholly impervious to the inhibitions of caste. During cholera time,
Victor once had another patient in the hospital whose family was
not there to attend to his needs.

"He should have food," Victor said to one of his students.

"He is not of my caste," was the firm reply. "I cannot feed him."

Yet even in those pre-independence days, before caste was le¬
gally prohibited, Victor noticed a change in the attitudes of his
students. Whether the result of the democratic ethic at work in the
new India or of the Christian teaching and example of their fellow
workers, there was a growing conviction among young Hindus
that service to people was more important than the old taboos.

Yet even among Christian workers there was a reluctance to
assume tasks that were considered by Hindus to belong only to the
lower castes or the Untouchables. Victor often tried to break these
taboos by setting an example. He determined that he would never
ask anybody to do what he would be unwilling to do himself, even
the work of sweeper or scavenger. In fact, he felt the need as a
Christian missionary to become a "sweeper" to dignify the place of
an Untouchable. When opportunity afforded and he was not in
surgical dress, he would clean up the compound and remove the
result of gross indiscretion on the part of a patient. Whether it
helped anyone but himself he never discovered, but at least he
knew it was what the Lord would have done had He been there.

"What caste would you choose," he sometimes asked himself,
"if you were a Hindu and had to be born into one?" Always his
reply was, "a sweeper." It was they who most aroused his respect
and admiration. They were unafraid. Never would one run away

148

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

from duty in a cholera epidemic. Cheerfully they would clean up
the most dangerous watery stools of the patients. In the hospital
they were careful not to contaminate the food of the high caste
person by allowing their shadows to fall across it.

Perhaps it was the example of his sweeper ayah, the little brown
woman who had been humbly and lovingly ready for service of
any kind, who seemingly had accepted as a privilege the cleaning
up after one of the children's "accidents," that had first taught him
the dignity of making cleanness where there was filth, sweetness
where there was something repulsive or malodorous. Caste was
undoubtedly wrong, yet there were certain values in a system that
made such people feel that theirs was a work that no one else could
do and that they were born to do it.

So great was Victor's respect for the age-old culture of the coun¬
try that only rarely, as with the incident of the dead monkey, did he
arouse antagonism in his Hindu friends. But there was one con¬
frontation that at least threatened his own peace of mind. Once
when he walked down to the gate from the verandah, there wait¬
ing for him was the chief of police for their whole area of 250,000
population, an imposing figure in full uniform, resplendent as for a
ceremonial durbar or a Delhi coronation. The Indian military dress
prescribed by the British was par excellence—proper buttons,
bands on shoulders, khaki shorts with knife-sharp creases, and a
faultlessly wrapped and crimson-bound turban.

"Good morning. Sahib." There was an ominous overtone in his
greeting.

"Anything I can do for you?" inquired Victor cordially. "I was
just going to our morning worship at the hospital."

"Yes. I came to inquire whether you know a man called [He gave
a name]."

Victor considered. "No. Afraid I don't. What kind of person
would he be?"

"Well, he was a blind person, and you operated on him."

Victor sensed trouble, serious trouble, perhaps, if something
had been reported to the police. "So?" He began to question
warily. "And did the man get his sight back?"

" ]i-han , yes, Doctor Sahib." The answer came with explosive
scorn. "He got his sight back all right. Very well, indeed. And you
didn't know who he was? Nobody told you?"

"No." Victor was more puzzled than ever. "I operate on at least
twenty people a day. I can't keep track of their names. I look at the
eye, see what it needs, do what is necessary. Saving sight is my
job."

" Ai-oh , I'll tell you who he was! The biggest thief in our district.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

149

And for three years while he was blind he never stole a thing. You
gave him back his sight. And now. Doctor Sahib, he's back in jail
for stealing."

Victor was aghast. Here they were Christian evangelists, dedi¬
cated to saving souls as well as bodies. He could well understand
the policeman's scorn. For a moment he was speechless. Then
Victor asked quietly, "Tell me, what do you think? Should I have
taken out his cataract?"

Instantly the chief dropped his official manner. " Ji-han , Doctor
Sahib. Of course. You had no choice any more than I had to arrest
him. You had to do it."

So Victor was at peace with the Indian policeman, but not with
himself. Always there was the frustration of being unable to follow
up the progress of patients, both physically and spiritually. There
was never enough staff: doctors, nurses, preaching missionaries,
and Indian evangelists. People came to the hospital or clinic, were
recorded by name, examined, treated, operated on, told the story
of Yesu, and prayed with. They went away, many of them like this
thief, never to be seen again. Only at such moments as this did
there seem to be conflict between his two goals, healing and
evangelism. Would it be better to open fewer blind eyes, as some of
his superiors advised, and have more time to check on the moral
and spiritual consequences? For a little while after an experience of
this sort, he might be uncertain. Then something wonderful would
happen. He might take the bandages off the eyes of a child who,
looking up at the stars for the first time in his life, asked, "What are
those spots in the sky?" He might hear the rice gatherer clap his
hands when his bandages were removed and exclaim, "I see leaves
on trees!" or he would watch the light break in the face of a mother
who, on the third day, begged, "Please, let me see my baby!" and
saw it for the first time, a lovely, lively, well-nourished child. Then
all uncertainty was gone.

And soon, during those years of the early 1940s, Victor was
plunged into a pioneer project that restructured his whole tech¬
nique of service and brought blessing to hundreds of thousands of
lives.

8

T he idea of the "eye camp" had been developing through the
years as an outgrowth of the expeditions into villages for
giving injections for yaws and syphilis. Along with the medicines
for the treatment of sundry ailments and diseases, Victor was soon
taking his instruments for examining and treating eyes. It was only
a step from this phase of village work to the undertaking of actual
surgery.

It began with a visit from a malguzar, a head man of a village who
had cataracts and had brought with him to the hospital several of
his friends who needed the same operation. "When people in my
village learned that I was coming to the mission hospital," he said
to Victor, "many wanted to come with me. Like me, they have this
motia bind so that the eyes become dimmer and dimmer and finally
they cannot see. I could not bring them all. Doctor Sahib, could you
not come to us so that all might be healed?"

Victor was startled into near speechlessness. "I—I only wish we
could, brother," he replied at last with regret. "How wonderful it
would be!"

Wonderful, yes, but of course it was impossible. Transfer the
whole hospital facilities—surgical equipment, sterilizers, staff,
and provisions for the extended care of patients—into what might
be the crude, unsanitary, dust-ridden, fly-infested environment
that was an Indian village? How shocked his teachers in the spot¬
less sterility of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital would be at
the very idea! But, then, they would have been shocked by the
simplicity of his own sparse setup as he had found it, with its
meager surgical equipment, its windows that even when screened
were subject to winds, dust, and insects, its lack of ceiling, and its
overbearing heat. And they would have thrown up their sanitized
hands in horror at his first cataract operation in a village hut,
instruments boiled at a distance and carried in sterile towels, a

150

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

151

thatched verandah for surgery, for spotlight only an ordinary
flashlight, a string cot on a bare floor for recovery.

But that first cataract operation in a village had been successful.
If it could work in one case, why not in two, or a dozen? Impossi¬
ble? The great British surgeon. Sir Henry Holland, who had
founded the work at Quetta, had done mobile eye work from his
hospital, taking a team once each year to Shikarpur and minister¬
ing to a tremendous gathering of people with cataracts and the
ravages of trachomatous granulated lids. Victor consulted Hira Lai.

"Brother," he said, "our patient from Lemha, the head man, says
there are many people in his village with cataract who will not
leave their homes to come to the hospital. He wants us to go there
to operate, not on just one but on many at a time. Is the idea
practical? Is it possible?"

The Indian's eyes sparkled like the jewel, "diamond precious,"
that his name signified. "Ji-han, yes, Doctor-ji! I have often
dreamed of such a thing. Possible? Of course. Difficult, yes. But
with God all things are possible."

Plans were made. The head man's village, Lemha, was about
nineteen miles from Mungeli. It was isolated during the muds and
floods of the rainy season, but now the road to it, if rough wagon
tracks could be called a road, was passable, at least with an ox cart.
Victor sent one of his helpers to make the arrangements. The
village schoolhouse was chosen to serve as the "surgery." Word
was broadcast through the village that on a certain day all those
suffering from the motia bind could come to this central place to
have their eyes examined.

Preparations were simple. Victor took only two helpers with
him, a pharmacist and a cook. Hira Lai did not go. The team made
the nineteen-mile journey in an ox cart, a two-wheeled wooden
vehicle with solid iron tires, the driver sitting on the center pole
running from the cart to the yokes of the two oxen, his hard seat
cushioned by a few folds of sheeting. Progress over the rutted,
dusty track was limited to about four miles an hour, and the
journey took nearly six hours. It was late afternoon when they
arrived in Lemha. Victor was amazed to find a crowd of perhaps
fifty persons waiting at the schoolhouse. He spent the hours before
dark examining them, setting aside those who were ready for
cataract surgery. In the morning he started operating, using the
teacher's desk for his operating table. That day he removed nine¬
teen cataracts, one for every mile he had traveled.

The patients, eyes bandaged, were settled on mats or charpois in
the schoolhouse, and a pharmacist with ophthalmologic training

152

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

was left to make sure they remained completely quiet. He had been
trained to change dressings and perform other services for the
patients. Like those in the hospital, they would be fed by members
of their families, who would also attend to their sanitary needs.

Victor returned home by the same ox cart. Nineteen operations
for cataract in one day was a small number compared to his hospi¬
tal schedule, but these nineteen were done under conditions that
would have caused his eminent lecturer in ophthalmology, Dr. de
Schweinitz, to shudder with professional horror. Had he, Victor,
been possessed of consummate courage or consummate audacity?
Suppose the lack of hospital care resulted in infections or cases of
irrevocable blindness? Just because one such operation in a village
hut had been successful, could one take it for granted that nineteen
would be? He waited apprehensively. When the pharmacist sent a
message that all the patients were resting quietly and seemed to be
doing well, he was relieved but not wholly assured.

After nine days Victor returned to Lemha. He removed the
bandages. In one face after another he saw the dawn of recogni¬
tion, of comprehension, of incredulous joy. Vision was not perfect,
of course. Some might well see "men as trees walking." The
features of loved ones might be blurred. But at least they could see.
And for all nineteen the first object glimpsed, however vaguely,
was the face of the man who had performed the "miracle." Over
and over Victor tried to divert the outpourings of gratitude and
adoration. "]i-nahin, no. Do not thank me, brother. It is the Lord
Yesu who has caused me to give you back your sight. Let us both
thank Him."

He had no intimation that history had just been made, that the
nineteen would be increased by many thousands, that he had set
in motion a ministry that was to exert its life-giving power not only
from one end of India to the other but also through many other
countries of the world.

News travels fast in India, independent of journals, radio, or
television; and it was not long before an invitation came from
another village, this time Panditarai, almost thirty miles away. The
same procedure was used, but on this trip Victor and his helpers
traveled by car. Again a large crowd had assembled. Again there
were the examinations, the operations, the careful attendance by
the helper, the journey back after nine or ten days over the long
miles, the removal of bandages, and the wonder of sight for the
twenty-seven persons who had had surgery. Later these, as well as
the patients in Lemha, would be fitted as far as possible with
glasses from the supplies arriving from America.

Of course there were other eye ailments demanding Victor's

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

153

constant attention both in the hospital and in villages, all of them
exacerbated by poor diet, poor sanitation, poor hygiene, and flies.
One of these ailments was trachoma, a viral disease that, barring
infection, was fairly simple to treat even in the years before antibio¬
tics and sulfur drugs. But with infection the disease would often be
followed by painful and destructive intuming lashes. After infec¬
tion had reduced the conjunctiva to lumpy scar tissue, the lashes
would be pulled directly into the conjunctival sac so that they
would be rubbing the cornea. Misery and gradual or rapid loss of
vision from the trauma of this rubbing made these sufferers
wretched, particularly in the hot, dry weather when there was
sand in the stiff breeze.

Victor did not find an effective operation for these inturning
lashes until a copy of Meyer Weiner's book on eye surgery arrived.
Bless the giver who was inspired to send it! It described a lid
operation that proved both effective and free of complications. In
time he was to do several thousand mucous membrane transplan¬
tations for these entropion patients before antibiotics introduced
better methods. It seemed logical. There was loss of tissue. Why
not give a soft mucous membrane to the eye, a membrane that
could not develop trachoma and that would act as replacement for
the rough scar that had contracted the lid and often resulted in
blindness as well as misery?

One of the most prevalent ailments and most satisfactory to treat
was the cornea attacked by vitamin A deficiency. When a child or
an adult started to show the effects of this deficiency, the first
change was the "fish scale" cornea, looking somewhat clear but
not completely so. Next, if no vitamin A was given, came the
"fingernail" stage, when the whole cornea apparently became
opaque, threatening necrosis, which meant death of the sensitive
tissue. The first two stages were reversible. Give a patient, often an
infant sagging like a sponge in its mother's arms, an injection of
100,000 units of vitamin A in the afternoon, the next morning you
would see the child come back marvelously alert, cornea clearing,
sight largely restored. Nor was anything more heartrending than
the child that came with necrosis, the cornea gone blind.

However, if the child given the injection in time went home to
the same poor diet, without vitamin A or protein, the condition
would recur. Victor and Louise would send milk from their own
tables to many such homes, but what a tiny drop in the ocean of
need. Later would come the donations of dry skim milk from
overseas. "Thank God and America," Victor would exclaim
fervently, "for thousands of tons that have come to fight kwashior¬
kor and vitamin A deficiency!"

154

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

The skim milk had all the protein to prevent kwashiorkor, al¬
though not much vitamin A. But in India shark liver oil was
available if it could only be procured and distributed where
needed. Victor's own children were given ten drops of it each day.
And if it was necessary for a normal child, how much more neces¬
sary it was for one that sat on the floor of a village hut with nothing
in its bowl but polished rice.

Satisfying though it was to give such treatments, many of them
blindness prevention, no joy could compare with the triumph of
seeing one who had been curably blind from cataract now able to
see, his life made useful again. Nor could any pain compare with
that of telling a hopeful patient that nothing could be done.

"One morning," his son Bill would recall, "I remember going
over to the hospital, seeing Dad come out on the front steps
wearing his long white coat, putting his arm around an old lady's
shoulder, and sitting beside her on the steps while he told her with
tears in his eyes that he could not cure her blindness but that he did
know Someone who could give her spiritual sight."

One spring three barefoot men came to the hospital in single file,
clad in dusty loincloths, each carrying a few grains of rice in a bag.
Only one eye out of the six had sight. They were given painstaking
care. The doctors discovered that they could restore sight to the
first man. The second, vigorous and in high spirits, had cataracts,
and Victor was able to operate successfully. The third could not see
even the glow of a flashlight or tell that the sun was shining except
when his skin felt warm.

"My brother," Victor had to tell him, "I am sorry. We cannot help
you."

"Oh, yes, you can! Those other two men, you have promised
them sight."

Sadly Victor explained why he could do nothing. It was too late.
The barefoot villager then walked to a side wall, turned his back,
and chanted in a high, wailing voice an old Indian lament. The
words echoed mournfully through the compound like a funeral
dirge:

O my God, what did I do?

O my mother, what did I do?

O my father, what did I do?

O my God, what did I do?

Later Victor returned to the hospital, put on his gown and gloves
for surgery, and there on the operating table was the blind Indian.
Somehow he had slipped through the crowd and had asked the

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

155

nurse in charge, hoping against hope, for the surgery. It was agony
for Victor to take him off the table.

Yet the joys outnumbered the sorrows. There was the widow,
blind from cataract, who lived in a village forty miles from
Mungeli. Her husband and sons had died of cholera. Although
blind, she eked out a meager living by grinding wheat between two
stones, for every quart of flour receiving a few tablespoons in pay.
She saved up a little flour, traded it for rice, tied the rice in a cloth,
grasped a bamboo stick, and started walking. Three weeks later
she arrived in Mungeli, led for the last mile by a naked, five-year-
old boy. Victor was able to restore her sight.

There was the boy of seven, blind since birth, his father and
grandfather and uncle also blind with congenital cataracts. At least
he had been made to see and would be able to start school. There
was the old man, very feeble, who wanted so much to see again.
His cataract was a heavy black one called a metabolic cataract. So
happy was he when it was removed that it seemed to restore his
health and strength and make him almost young again. There was
the man who, as his eyes were opened, hugged Victor so hard that
it seemed one of his ribs must be broken, and said, "I am bom
again as a baby. How can I thank you?"

Why were there so many instances of cataract in India, five and a
half million according to one authority, accounting for 55 percent of
all cases of blindness? Once Victor and Dayal made a survey of
seven villages in central India and found that one person in every
fifty had an operable cataract. What caused its prevalence? It was
not chiefly senility as in Western countries, for in India it often
occurred in the thirties or early forties or even younger. Was it
malnutrition, heredity, disease, or ultraviolet rays? Could it be the
bombardment of light on unprotected lenses in this land of glaring
sun? In Thailand, Victor discovered, where from babyhood to old
age the round hat was worn, preventing the squinting of eyes
against the glare, there was far less incidence of cataract; and in
Africa, where there were more trees, there were only about one
tenth as many instances as in India. There was need for research on
prevention, yes, but for the millions already blinded prevention
was impossible. Nothing could restore their sight but surgery.

As the idea of eye camps took root in Victor's imagination, his
hopes widened. He dreamed of staggering possiblities. A hundred
camps—ten thousand blind made to see! A thousand camps—
one hundred thousand given sight! Why not five million? Was it
possible? Hira Lai had given the answer to that.

''Ji-han, yes, Doctor ji! With God all things are possible."

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

The eve camp was an idea whose time had come, and in the early
years of the forties it came to full fruition. The first official camp
was held in March 1943 at Kawardha, a native state under British
suzerainty about forty-five miles from Mungeli. An invitation
came from the rajah. Unlike the first impromptu experiments in
villages, it was an orderly, well-planned expedition. Preparations
were methodical, the staff was kept as minimal as possible, yet
everything was bent on perfection. Suman Choudharie, alv ^ a Y s
efficient, was in charge of the nursing. Out of the adjacent hills
people came in vast numbers, many who had been sightless for

' This time there was a real hospital for surgery. It was small, with
perhaps six or eight beds, but it was clean and adequately
equipped. The rajah had done more for his people than control
them from his big palace. He was so interested in the procedure
that they put a hospital gown on him and let him watch. e
operation was simplicity itself. At that time Victor was using on y

one stitch and getting very fine results. .... . , •

"I could do that!" exclaimed the rajah excitedly after watching
several operations. "Let me scrub up and help you," It took all of
Victor's tact to dissuade him. It was interesting to see his eagerness

to become a doctor. ,

Ninety-six operations were performed, most of them tor
cataract. The patients were placed for recovery in the few hospital
beds on mats on the floor and verandah, in adjoining houses of
the town, or in tents. Some of the rajah's family were taken by

stretcher to the palace. ......

There was only one failure in all ninety-six cases, a patient with
bilateral cataract who had expulsive hemorrhage in both eyes, t
was unpreventable but catastrophic for Victor. Thirty ve years
later, tears would still come to his eyes at the memory. Every one
else had perfect healing, and all but one were given cataract glas¬
ses, mostly plus tens made from Belgian plate glass.

This was only the beginning. During the next quarter century'
some one hundred fifty eye camps would be held by teams travel¬
ing from the Mungeli hospital into at least twenty-five villages,
many up to a hundred miles away. They would go by ox cart, by
car, by bicycle, by bus, and by train. The list of villages would have
furnished a geographical roster of the whole surrounding area and
even beyond—Lormi, Takhatpur, Khuna, Pandanya Pandatarai,
Kunda, Patharia, Kodwa, Sambhalpur, Amarkantak, Shahdol,

Khodri, Simga, and a dozen others.

After Kawardha, the team had all the equipment necessary for
fine ophthalmology. There was a slit-lamp microscope, a small

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

157

perimeter complete with colored pins for designating visual fields,
signals with red and white targets, and blacks for larger fields. At
first instruments were taken from the operating room at the hospi¬
tal, but later enough were secured so that those used on trips were
kept in a mobile eye camp box. The arrangement for sterile cotton,
when they did not know whether they would be doing twenty
operations or sixty or a hundred, was surprisingly successful,
especially after a pressure cooker was obtained. When there were
not enough pads and gauze and those wonderful swab sticks with
absorbent cotton tips, they could make them up right in the village
and sterilize them twice, just as in the autoclave. It meant that
always, whether in hospital or village, they could use the no-touch
technique.

Camps could be held only during the winter months, not in the
monsoons, and not in the 120 degree heat of April to June—say
from October to March. Even in this period, January and February
were often prohibitive because so many patients came to the hospi¬
tal that the staff found it difficult to leave Mungeli.

They were held in all sorts of shelters: a church; a schoolhouse; a
verandah; a government rest house; a dharam shala, a mercy house
built by a Hindu grateful for or wanting God's help; even once in a
Hindu temple. Thanks to the Rambo Committee, Victor had
brought back from furlough a Chevy "Suburban Commercial" for
village work, and it proved ideal for transporting the team and
necessary equipment.

A regular plan of action was developed. First, perhaps a week
before the camp, a messenger would be sent out to the villages
surrounding the place where the camp was to be held. "Come,"
invited this "teller of good news," announcing the time and place,
"all you who suffer from the motia, all you who have trouble in the
eyes. Come, mothers, fathers, children, all of you. The Doctor
Sahib is coming, he who makes the blind to see."

Just so another "teller of good news" centuries ago, traveling
through other oriental villages, had given another invitation, "Ho,
everyone who is athirst, come to the waters. Come, without
money and without price."

Arriving in the village, the team would set to work immediately,
examining the assembled patients, listing those needing surgery. If
there was time, operations would be done the same day, but
usually there were too many people to examine. All essential
procedures were followed as in the hospital—sterilizing of in¬
struments and solutions, preparation of the patient's eye, and
prayer for God's blessing. Sterilization at first was by boiling, later
by use of a pressure cooker.

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

At first the numbers of cases were small, perhaps fifteen to
forty-five cataracts, one or two glaucomas, and a few with
trichiasis from healing of granulations of trachoma. But numbers
increased rapidly to fifty, sixty, and even a hundred in a single
camp. All were cared for, even if work continued far into the night.

Because eye camps often took place during their winter vacation,
Victor took the children with him whenever possible, and fre¬
quently they helped in the operating area. On one occasion at
Kawardha, Bill, not called on to help, was wandering around the
village when an Indian woman came rushing out of a house.

"You must be Rambo Sahib's son," she greeted happily. "Your
father saved my life some years ago. Come! You must come into
our house and eat." Bill joined the family for a meal of delicious rice
and curry and spent much time in their home during the camp.

It was on another trip, this time into the jungle perhaps thirty
miles from Mungeli, that an incident occurred that Bill would
always remember. He had a new hammock he wanted to use, and
he strung it between two trees at the edge of a clearing. Victor and
the rest of the team were housed in a villager's little hut nearby. Bill
woke in the very early morning hours, before dawn, and saw his
father standing by the hammock, doubtless come to check on his
safety, then kneeling in prayer for a long time before returning to
the hut. The children might be embarrassed sometimes at his
praying at any time and in any place, occasionally, it seemed, to
attract attention rather than for need of prayer; but every one of
them would remember with deepest gratitude the many times they
had been conscious of his kneeling in the night beside their beds.

Victor had a concern for all children, not just his own. "I re¬
member my father saying hello to the children of India," Barbara
was to write long afterward. "The little ones running around a
village, some with nothing on, some with a little shirt. He would
take them by the hand, make a face or joke with them. To some he
would say, 'How are you, sir?' They loved to follow him wherever
he went. His recognition that they were very important was a
witness to the love of Christ. I have never seen other missionaries
act as he did toward little children. He loved them and acted it out.
He gave them a vision of what they might become and an assur¬
ance that God loved them."

The mission board did not wholly approve of the eye camps;
how many conversions resulted from these fly-by-night sallies into
distant villages? Not a one that anybody had discovered. "A Paul,"
one colleague described Victor, "who had to earn his living and
spend 98 percent of his time in an auxiliary of missions." There
were preaching tours; they were customary and understandable.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

159

But the eye camps were another one of Victor's innovative ideas
carried out without the board's full support. He always managed
to get more than enough money to implement them, money that
could well have been used for more-orthodox enterprises. Perhaps
what made the board most uneasy was his genius for the unex¬
pected, the unpredictable. They never knew what he would be up
to next.

However, an incident occurred that changed the mind of one
mission official, at least about eye camps. There was a village in the
Mungeli area in which a group of new Christians was experienc¬
ing much persecution. The members had been beaten, their
fields taken away, their trees cut down and their women insult¬
ed. Th emalguzar (head man) was determined to wipe out the little
church. One day Donald McGavran was talking with this head
man.

"Why don't you ask Dr. Rambo to bring one of his eye camps
here," he suggested, "and then send out messengers to the
hundred neighboring villages to send in their blind?"

" Achchha! A good idea!" The malguzar, an opportunist, recog¬
nized an opportunity to raise his status with both government and
public. "Will you convey the invitation to Rambo Sahib?"

Victor accepted gladly. He and his team were met at the village
boundary and garlanded. They operated in one of the head man's
own buildings, the fifty patients being laid out for postoperative
care in his stable on stacks of straw. Victor left the village that night,
leaving a nurse to care for the patients. When he returned on the
tenth day and removed the bandages, fifty people walked out with
their sight restored. The malguzar's own eyes were opened. There
was no further persecution of Christians in his village.

It was during these A. T. (After Tom) years that a young doctor
who was destined to become one of the most successful ophthal¬
mologic surgeons in the world came to Mungeli.

"I have finished my medical studies," wrote John Coapullai, son
of a Christian in government service farther south in Central Prov¬
inces, "and I want to specialize in eyes. May I come to you as an
intern?"

John came in the early 1940s. Victor was able to give him a living
salary, with board, room, and laundry. He proved to be a kindly,
witnessing, energetic person, if a trifle impulsive. Victor could
sympathize with that quality. But when the new intern attempted
his first cataract operations, he despaired. His arms and hands
were in the wrong position, and his fingers were unsure. Every
line of his body expressed uncertainty.

"Look here, son," Victor said patiently, "you want to do

160

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

ophthalmologic surgery. You've got to hold your hands parallel,
not stretched out like wings. Get your hand balance so that you
hold fine instruments with only your fine muscles being used in
manipulating the quarter of a millimeter necessary to do the
work."

Reaching around the young man's body, Victor took his hands
and literally used them to perform the operation. "See," he ex¬
plained, "make sure the extensor and flexor are balanced here.
Keep your elbows close to your body." In subsequent weeks and
months, the hands grew skilled and confident. During the years
Victor was to use the same technique with others he trained. And
by this time monkeys, although considered sacred by the Indians,
had become so many and destructive that sensible people around
Mungeli kept their eyes closed when some disappeared, and Victor
was able to obtain quite a few specimens for John Coapullai and
others to practice on.

John remained in Mungeli about two years. But, like Victor, he
had a dream of helping village people. He accepted a post where
the need was even greater, at a Baptist hospital in Sompeta, 5 miles
from the east coast on the Bay of Bengal and 150 miles from any
center specifically treating eyes. During the next thirty years he
was to develop one of the finest eye hospitals in India.

"We can't get enough funds to help the poor," he once wrote
Victor. Victor wrote to his Rambo Committee for help and the
committee gave funds so that John could supply help free of
charge. It also gave him a transport vehicle and many fine tools,
including a slit-lamp microscope for examination of the interior of
the eye. "A beautiful thing," Victor said in describing it, "giving
the surgeon the assurance of support." Without it, like himself for
many years, the surgeon must use a flashlight. With it, plus the
ophthalmoscope for detecting disease and the retinascope and trial
case instruments to give prescriptions for glasses, the eye surgeon
had all his essential equipment.

Once more Victor waited impatiently but with even greater
anticipation for the return of Dayal Sukhnandan from his medical
study. The reports he received of Dayal's progress were more than
satisfying.

"Dr. Rambo," wrote Mr. Hatfield, superintendent of the Penn¬
sylvania Hospital, "we are amazed at how much Dr. Sukhnandan's
patients love him."

His performance in surgery there was outstanding. Many of the
staff were overseas in medical units, and he had been given not
only unusual learning opportunities but also chances to demon¬
strate many cases to medical students. In surgical pathology, he

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

161

had been given the complete job of autopsy and following through
on sections of every organ. One patient was being treated in the
medical w r ards that no one could diagnose. No sooner had Dayal
seen the case than he realized at once that it was leprosy. He also
won the hearts of people in the churches in which he spoke, and he
gave an outstanding performance in international friendship that
opened the way for Dr. Philip James and over a score of Indian
nurses to go for special training in the States.

Dayal was given an opportunity to remain and graduate from an
American medical school, but once again, as when leaving Miraj,
he made the choice for Mungeli. Harry Tiedeck, who had been
chairman of the Rambo Committee almost from its beginning, took
him to the airport and saw* him off for India, via South America and
South Africa, for it was still wartime.

At last the w r ar came really close to the Rambos. In January 1944,
Louise w r ent with Birch to Bombay to see him off with three of his
Kodai classmates for military service in America. The boys had a
day for sightseeing, ending in frenzied finance as they tried to
figure out who ow’ed w T hom and how much; then very early the
next morning they w T ent to the docks, where there w T as tight secu¬
rity, relatives not being allowed beyond the entrance gates. Birch
and his friends revealed no other emotion than adventurous ex¬
citement; not so Louise. It was the second break in family, and this
time there might really be danger involved. Nevertheless, she
accepted his going as being right. Birch reached Philadelphia in
time to enter the second semester at Franklin and Marshall College
at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the naval officer program.

As the war drew toward its end, Victor took time off from his
w T ork, visiting a dozen places, trying to find someone with the
authority to release the tremendous mass of equipment that w’ould
be left in India. In Calcutta, Agra, Delhi, and Andhra he was
treated w r ith a tired but firm no. He w T as told that not a single
instrument, piece of equipment, or vehicle w T as going to be left
behind wTien the Western troops left. He needed a portable X-ray
machine and one of those wonderful optical vehicles that w*ould
grind lenses and edges. He needed several operating tables, surgi¬
cal instruments, cabinets, electric light wdre, and small and large
generators. What did he not need? He got nothing, either by
purchase or by gift. Exasperated, he returned to Mungeli. Later on,
in some of the junkyards of Calcutta, he picked up equipment that
had been left out in the rains and w’as practically useless. He heard
a rumor that two hundred thousand pairs of dark glasses had been
put under bulldozers in the jungle and destroyed.

In spite of the hospital's lack of facilities and its remoteness.

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

thirty-four miles from the railroad and a difficult journey from
Madras, a surprising number of people sought it out in preference
to institutions of much higher reputation. One was a Mr. Haldor, a
Swiss. After retirement in Switzerland, he came to Victor to have
his cataract removed. Louise gave him the guest room in the
bungalow, and he was a member of the household during surgery
and convalescence.

"Why did you come away out here?" Victor asked him curiously.
"You have so many doctors, good ones, so much closer. In fact, you
could have gone anywhere in Europe."

Mr. Haldor explained. He had had trouble with his other eye and
was apprehensive about the results of surgery on this one. "I came
to you because I have heard of all the work you have done," he
said, "and because you pray."

Victor operated and, of course, prayed. Three weeks later the
patient left with his prescription for glasses. Months afterward,
Victor saw him in Madras. His glasses were still effective, his vision
better than normal. He went back to Switzerland and settled. Years
later a Swiss physician, Dr. Rickenback, came to India and worked
with Victor, then returned home to practice in Lucerne. Who
should come to him one day for a checkup on his prescription but
this same Mr. Haldor.

"I had my eye operated on in India," Haldor told the doctor.

"I know," returned the physician with a smile. "And I know who
operated on you. I can tell by looking at your eye. It was done by
Dr. Rambo."

During all the years of his long mission in India, Victor marched
to the tune of two trumpets, each one sounding reveille to action
with two goals—new sight for the curable blind and new lives
committed to his Master, Jesus Christ. Usually the two were in
harmony and often sounding the same note. He might organize a
team to go out into a village in the evening on an evangelistic tour,
but invariably after his short but poignant sermon, spoken in the
villagers' colloquial Hindi, he would be examining eyes, assem¬
bling patients to take back with him to the hospital. And never was
a patient treated without being told in some way that God was
concerned with his welfare.

Even in his casual meetings Victor managed to deliver a sort of
"mini-sermon." He noted that some of the castes greeted each
other with a little phrase that indicated the person's identity as a
member of the group. So for many years, when he greeted people
he would say in Hindi something like "God is love," "Jesus is your
friend," or "God loves you."

In many ways he was far more Indian than American. His habit

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

163

of vocal prayer that often embarrassed his children and others was
wholly in accord with the customs of his adopted country. "When a
person prays in India," he once observed, "other people know it.
They do things that show they are praying. When people mumble
as they pray, does it mean anything to the observer?" It meant
something when Victor prayed. Like the Hindu crawling for miles
on his knees or smearing his bare body with ashes or endlessly
intoning the name of Ram, he showed, not just avowed, his com¬
munion with God. People might not remember his words, but they
would not forget his kneeling in the dust, giving thanks for their
healing; his lifted arms wishing Jesus a happy birthday; his stop¬
ping in the middle of a street to discuss with God the problems of a
complete stranger.

So insistent were the trumpet calls that Victor would have be¬
grudged the time spent on furloughs if they had not furthered
progress toward the two goals, giving opportunity for more medi¬
cal study and experience and for arousing support for his work.

Because of the war, eight years had passed since their last fur¬
lough. Even in 1945 it was next to impossible for a missionary to get
transportion to America. They were told that there were two
hundred people waiting in Bombay for transportation. But it was
time for them to go. Victor's mother, Kate, had died two years
before in Claremont, and he wanted to get home. Helen was
waiting and needed them. They packed up and, going to Bombay,
settled into lodgings under the care of the Methodist church. Then
suddenly came a telephone message. "Come down to the Ameri¬
can Express office immediately. The transport will leave tomorrow.
You must be on board at nine o'clock. And there must be absolutely
no mention of your going."

By hurrying they were at the dock on time. There was an im¬
pressive ship, the Admiral Benson, with hundreds of servicemen
looking down over the side. Then as they were feeling very small
and unimportant, from the lines on the deck came a high-pitched
shout, "Hi, Rambos!" It was Bill, one of the soldiers who had been
in their home in Mungeli. They would have a friend on board!
Although they were quartered in a different part of the ship, their
own Bill was able to see him a few times.

As civilians they were in officers' quarters, eighteen to a cabin,
Louise, Barbara, and Tommy in one for women and children,
Victor and Bill in a men's cabin nearby. It was hard to explain their
good fortune. Most of the hundreds waiting on shore did not leave
until the Gripsholm came some time later.

Before long Victor had darkened a room where the men could
have their eyes examined (easy enough, for there was always

164

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

blackout in the evening). One young solder said to him, "Would
you like to look at my eyes? The doctor says I have a fundus like a
rabbit." Sure enough, there were the myelin fibers that had come
through and spread brushlike over the retina from the optic nerve.

"God did a wonderful job on your eyes," Victor told him. "There
are a few nerve fibers that have come out of the nerve and brought
along with them the white insulating material, but your vision is
perfect. The rabbit does have a fundus like yours, but his is a much
more extensive white. Thank you for letting me look at your eyes."

"Thank you for looking," returned the soldier. "Do you work on
eyes all the time?"

"Yes. There are millions of eyes that need attention in India and
few doctors to attend to them. I have a fine team to care for the sick,
I mean Christ has, for it's His job we're doing." Here had been
another opportunity to witness.

Where were they going? They had no idea until someone said,
"To a land that has kangaroos." In Australia they were delayed for
days in the Charles River of Brisbane but not allowed to go ashore.
The irate officer in charge of civilians even stopped the boys from
fishing for catfish in the river, although the ship's cook was kind
about cooking their catch. "Let me go down," begged Victor, "and
just put my foot on Australian soil. I'll not run away."

"Sorry, sir," was the curt answer.

They went on through the Pacific. News came that President
Roosevelt had died, and the chaplain led the ship at dress services.
At one point there was gunnery practice, with a target trailed and
shot at from all parts of the heavily armed vessel. They were
panicked upon discovering that Tommy was missing, until they
found that he had been taken by the sailors into the front turret to
see the sight and enjoy the sounds of the fast antiaircraft gunnery,
experiencing thrills he would never forget.

In San Diego they were met by Red Cross workers, who were
expecting refugees from the Philippines. They had enormous
supplies of milk in quart cartons, which they urged the Rambos to
drink and take with them to the hotel. The family had forgotten
how good American whole, pasteurized milk could taste.

Louise's greatest joy in the furlough was in reunion with her
mother and the children; Helen, who graduated that year from
Wilson College and started work as a laboratory technician in
Baltimore; and Birch, who was still in officer's training at Franklin
and Marshall College. Before the furlough ended they saw Helen
married to Wesley P. Walters, a young minister.

Victor's activities were momentous for the future, for profound
changes were imminent in his medical career. Before leaving India

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

165

he had been asked by Dr. Robert Cochrane, the world famous
leprologist, to become head of the department of ophthalmology at
Vellore Christian Medical College and Hospital, the great interna¬
tional and interdenominational institution founded by Dr. Ida
Scudder. Dr. Cochrane had left his work in leprosy to become
director of the medical college, which was trying desperately to
upgrade its curriculum to comply with the new regulations of the
Indian government. In spite of his fellowship in the American
College of Surgeons, Victor was not sure that he had the necessary
training in ophthalmology for such a position. Immediately on
reaching Philadelphia he planned, with Dr. Edmund Spaeth, a
leading ophthalmologist and loyal supporter of Victor's work, his
preparation for taking the American Board of Ophthalmology
examination. That preparation meant clinic and operating room
attendance at Wills Eye Hospital and dissection at Temple Univer¬
sity. It was a revealing three months' experience. At Wills he got
countless opportunities for practice in Western cataract surgery,
and at Temple he had a course in dissection that greatly increased
his knowledge of the anatomy of the eye. For pathology he went to
Washington and studied with Dr. Helena Wilder and her staff. The
examinations of the board were held in San Francisco, and while
on the West Coast he was able to visit briefly with his brothers,
Philip, who lived there in the city, and Huber in Portland. He was
as jittery as a college freshman until he learned he had passed.

Much of his time and energy, of course, were expended in
arousing support for the work in Mungeli. Plans were being made
for making the hospital the best village medical institution in India.
The Rambo Committee interested Mr. John Frazer in publishing a
pamphlet titled The Greatest Unrelieved Tragedy in the World.

"Night comes to village India without hurrying," the text began.
"At sunset the temple bells ring. People start homeward—a man
driving a bullock, a cowherd playing a flute, a woman wrapped in a
lotus-bordered sari.

"Smoke curls outside the mud-plastered huts. Sleeping bodies
soon will lie pithless on bed or mat or bare ground. . . .

"But tomorrow it will still be dark for ten million people of India.

"And tomorrow, and tomorrow.

"For it is the literal and hardly-to-be-grasped truth that
10,000,000 men, women and children of India are totally blind.
And for every person blind, three are partially blind."

The pamphlet brought results. A gift came from the Teachout
Foundation, enough money to obtain two Dodge panel vans that
were made into the best possible transportation for operating
teams. Both went to Mungeli under the Indo-American Agree-

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

ment, each with a trailer in which could be carried all the material
that would not require the complete dustproofing necessary for the
eye camps. Another "wondhap" was a chapel given by Dr. Walter
S. Priest of Chicago in honor of his father and mother. Pastor and
Mrs. Walter Scott Priest of Wichita, who had so influenced Victor in
his student days.

During Dayal Sukhnandan's study in America, he had become
acquainted with a Mr. and Mrs. Edward Bunell of Cleveland and
interested them in making donations for the hospital. Their gifts
made possible the Bunell Eye Ward, a powerhouse for electrical
installations, a system of running water, and a storage tank for rain
water to provide soft water for the sterilization of instruments. The
electrical equipment prepared the way for the much needed diag¬
nostic X-ray machine. Victor talked of this need and others where¬
ver he went, and, as always, his vision was unbounded, his re¬
quests tremendous. He was looking for a source of radioactive
strontium 90 and was trying to raise funds to the astronomical sum
of ten thousand dollars. (This was eventually donated by Mrs.
G.G. Watermull of the Watermull Foundation.) When Birch dis¬
covered that his father has been purchasing radioactive isotopes at
high prices, he was a bit shocked. "Why not wait three or four
years?" he suggested. "They are sure to come down in price."

His father turned on him. "Shut your eyes," he said, the quiet¬
ness of his voice belied by the furious intensity of his gaze. "Shut
them for ten minutes and walk around the house and get the sense
of how a blind person feels. Then suggest to me again that I wait
three or four years until prices come down."

Victor continued to have differences with his board. A mission¬
ary was supposed to raise money for the whole mission, not just
his own work. In turn, Victor resented the fact that money he had
secured for some special purpose was applied to other mission
stations. Years later Birch was to encounter one of the mission
executives. "I never met a greater missionary than your father,"
this man said to him, "or one harder to get along with."

By this time Birch himself, having had experience, could under¬
stand his father's impatience with all such governing bureaucrats.
The human needs were so great and the opportunities so urgent
that a person had to take action in order to live with his Christian
conscience. But he could understand the board's feeling also, for
none knew better than his children that Victor was a difficult man
to live with. It was like trying to run alongside a rushing locomo¬
tive.

Of course Victor hoped that all three of his sons would become
doctors, preferably ophthalmologists, but he tried not to influence

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

167

them. It was less his dominant personality than the insistence of
others that caused them to rebel at an early age. When they trav¬
eled with Mother and Dad in the churches, it seemed that some
little old lady was always coming up to them and saying sweetly,
"Well, little man, are you going to be a medical missionary like your
dear father?" Naturally it was the last thing any of them wanted to
do.

Victor was of course delighted when Birch, released from the
Navy in 1946, completed his work at Bethany College and decided
to study medicine. His highest hopes would be fulfilled when both
Birch and Bill graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Med¬
ical School, except that neither one of them planned to become an
ophthalmologist.

Victor's plea for a diagnostic X-ray unit was answered by Mrs.
Jane Brumaghim of the Rambo Committee, a member of Third
Christian Church in Philadelphia, who organized a bold campaign
and raised the money for it. It was installed later in memory of
Victor's father and mother, along with quarters for a doctor. Other
gifts would make possible a store of 210 milligrams of radium in
needles, a boon for cancer patients who had had to travel hundreds
of miles to Calcutta or some other center, the few that went at all.
And with the coming of the X-ray machine, there was no more
need to send emergency cases the long miles to Bilaspur, where the
only machine available was in the government hospital.

In the University of Pennsylvania Hospital was Benjamin West's
mural of Christ healing the sick, the mural that had so inspired
Victor during his student days. Seeing it again, he thought. If only
we had one like it in Mungeli! He spoke about it in many of his visits to
churches during this furlough. Mrs. Bessie Williams, a teacher of
art in Chicago, heard him speak. "If you could get a Kodachrome of
it," she told him, "I would like to make you a copy/'

Victor was overjoyed. Tom, Louise's brother, was a fine photo¬
grapher. He went down to the hospital and took a picture. The
artist made a copy almost the size of the original, composed on
several sections of heavy masonite board. The project was financed
by Keith Kindred, son of one of Victor's staunchest supporters.
Pastor C. G. Kindred, for nearly fifty years pastor of the
Englewood Christian Church in Chicago. When the family left
December 12, 1946, on the Dutch ship Tarakan, the picture went
with them, the best Christmas gift Victor could have taken back to
his beloved hospital.

He played Santa Claus in a more literal sense on the ship.
Observing Christmas on the high seas, the company arranged a
celebration with a chimney so fixed that Saint Nick could enter

168

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

according to tradition. Victor, always in the forefront of every
activity and if possible the chief actor, was chosen to play the part.
Everybody assembled. They were told that Santa Claus was going
to visit. Several toots sounded on the ship's horn; then the big horn
blasted, and loud footsteps were heard across the hatch just above.
Down came the robust Santa with a huge bag of toys. So real did
Victor appear in the suit provided by the management that when
Tom went forward to get his gift, he could not tell that it was his
own father. Only when Santa Claus concluded his act with a bout
of impromptu jigging that convulsed the audience was his identity
revealed to the entranced six-year-old.

Back in Mungeli, they moved into the Big Bungalow across the
road from the hospital, the "Doctor's Bungalow" being already
occupied. Cheerfully Louise adjusted to the change. Like most old
bungalows, it had more than human occupation. She was glad of
the little gackos, lizards that ran around the walls and ceilings,
disposing of mosquitoes; also of the shrews, or squeakers, that fed
on insects, roaches, and other pests. But rats and mice were an¬
other matter, and she had to declare war on them. Because the
house had been used for storing grain, it had a large rat population,
and for about a month they were catching in traps at least one rat
per night and often several. They never did completely evict the
undesirable tenants.

But it was a period of transition. There would come a time soon
when no bungalow in Mungeli, when Mungeli itself, would no
longer be called home. Already that year Victor was spending three
months, the teaching part of the year, at his new position in
Vellore. Finally he had the teaching job that he had wanted so long.
He had no doubt about the rightness of the change. It was time to
leave the work in the capable hands of Dayal Sukhnandan, Chris¬
topher Deen, and the other efficient staff members he had trained.
It was the missionary's job to find a work to do, do it, prepare
others to take it over, and then leave it: sow, cultivate, let others
reap. As always, with any major move he had made in his life, he
felt a guiding Hand.

9

I t was a new world. India in 1947 was an awakening giant, casting
off the shackles of four centuries of foreign occupation and, it
was to be hoped, bursting the chains of such age-old burdens as
disease, poverty, illiteracy, and starvation. And nowhere in the
country were the hopes more visible than in the Christian Medical
College and Hospital in Vellore, south India. In 1941 its indomitable
founder, Dr. Ida Scudder, in her seventies, had started a four-year
trek across the United States in a campaign for her third million
dollars to save her beloved college from annihilation; at the same
time in India, Dr. Robert Cochrane, the interim director, had been
scouring the world for doctors, professors, and scientists with the
necessary degrees to meet the new government requirements for
university status.

Victor, the new professor of ophthalmology, was one of his
recruits. They had long been friends, Victor often stopping on his
way to Kodai to visit the leprosarium in Chingleput, where Dr.
Cochrane, foremost leprologist in the world, had taught him much
about leprosy as it related to eyes. They were kindred spirits, each
with an obsessive dedication to his chosen task, and Cochrane had
applied to this service for Vellore the same "Get there, brother"
vigor with which he drove his car. Between Ranipet and Vellore,
the road passed through an archway so narrow that there was
room for only one car, slowing most travelers to twelve miles an
hour. Bob Cochrane had the reputation of negotiating it at fifty. His
task of upgrading finished, he returned to his leprosy work soon
after Victor arrived, yielding his post of director and principal to a
remarkable Indian woman. Dr. Hilda Lazarus, former chief medi¬
cal officer of the women's branch of the Indian Medical Service,
with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Victor was to spend about six months of each year teaching in
Vellore, the rest in Mungeli. He plunged into a surging flood of
new life and activity. Compared with Mungeli, Vellore was a giant

169

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

beside a pygmy. Instead of a small town, it was a teeming, sprawl¬
ing city. Instead of a growing but modest hospital, there was a vast
medical complex constantly expanding into new buildings, new
wards, new classrooms, new blocks, and new departments—a
huge hospital down in the bazaar section of the city, a medical
college four miles away in a mountain-girt valley, and in between
them little Schell Hospital, where Dr. Ida had started her work in
1902. Schell Hospital had since become the eye department of the
institution.

It was a time of new birth, for the college and hospital as well
as the nation. Victor was there when in July the first ten men stu¬
dents were admitted to an institution devoted to training Indian
women. He was there on August 15 when India became an in¬
dependent republic, a day of rejoicing although accompanied,
like most births, by bitter travail and bloodshed because of a
divided country.

"]ai Hind! }ai Hind! Victory to India!" Victor joined with students,
faculty, and the motley city crowds—Hindus, Muslims,
Christians—in the triumphant salute to the brave tricolor flag,
green and white and orange, greeting the dawn of this new day of
freedom. And with even greater zest he plunged into the task of
training young medical students to make some of the hopes of the
young nation come true.

Victor was technically the head of the eye department, but Dr. S.
Gurubatham, a fine ophthalmologist (although he lacked the de¬
grees needed to satisfy university requirements), continued as
acting head until he was drafted for a government post in Madras.
Then Victor took over full responsibility. Here, as in Mungeli, one
of his prime objectives was the training of young Indians to assume
leadership posts, the first one being Dr. Roy Ebenezer, who, thanks
to the Rambo Committee, was sent to London and Vienna for
graduate work. Many others would follow.

The world of Vellore was permeated by the personality of its
creator. Dr. Ida, "Aunt Ida" as she was now called by students and
faculty. Although she had retired officially to her mountain eyrie at
Kodaikanal at age seventy-six, "retirement" was hardly the name
to characterize her life in those days of great activity. She often
returned to her old quarters in the Big Bungalow, and now, at
seventy-eight, nearly a half century after she had set this huge
healing mechanism in motion, she was almost as tirelessly vigor¬
ous, fully as radiantly enthusiastic, as when at fifty she had begun
the formidable task of training women doctors; at sixty had trav¬
eled five hundred miles on foot in the mountains of Kashmir; and

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

171

at seventy had begun an incredible battle to save her life's great
purpose. At eighty she would still be smashing tennis balls across
the net, having played a championship game all her life; and at
eighty-five she would be riding an elephant through the jungles of
Mysore, looking for wild animals.

Fellowship with Dr. Ida was one of the greatest blessings in
Victor's new life. She would often drop into Schell Hospital and
watch, comment, rejoice in every modern improvement, but—
extraordinary for one who had been all her life a leader, some
would say a dictator—never criticize. She would meet the old
nurse, Sobidham, and tell of the days when Sobidham had been
her total nursing staff. She would tell how she had first done
cataract operations and exult in the new methods and skills. Al¬
ways she would recount how much God had done, was doing, and
would do for this work that He, not she, had accomplished
through the years.

It had long been Victor's desire to teach, and he entered his new
labor of love with all the zest of an enthusiast. His classes included
both undergraduate and graduate medical and nursing students.
Indian education had a strong tendency toward theory and book
learning, and he tried to overcome this by giving every possible
opportunity for experimental work. Instead of undergraduates
just memorizing the names of eye instruments, they operated on
animals' eyes, bought from the butcher. They did iridectomies and
took out "cataracts." They did trephining for glaucoma.

His methods were not conventional, and he abhorred mere
lecturing. His genial and breezy approach attracted students, and
they were intrigued by his informality. In his classes one never
knew what to expect. To illustrate a lesson in humility, he might
climb up on his desk and, before descending, perform a little jig.
He made himself the personal friend of every student. He man¬
aged to stress certain points of importance in such a way that no
student would ever forget them.

"A dirty lens," he would reiterate, "is an abomination to
ophthalmology."

Or, quoting from his teacher. Dr. John B. Deaver, an eminent
surgeon at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, and using the
same intonations and gestures he would say: "A surgeon should
have the eye of an eagle [raising his voice a little], the touch of a
woman [speaking tenderly], the courage of a lion, and [then,
shouting and hitting the desk in front of him with a wallop] the
constitution of a mule."

"When the canal of schlemm gets slim you get glaucoma."

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

"Ophthalmology is the only subject where you can stare at the
face of your neighbor's wife and escape punishment" (a sample of
his humor).

Yet certain features of his teaching could be called superconven-
tional.

"We were all taught like small children in the nursery," remem¬
bered Victor Choudharie, who had come from Mungeli to study
medicine. "For all the difficult technical words, we had to shout the
spellings together aloud. Being from Mungeli, I was expected to
know all the spellings of words like Pterigium, Pinguecula, and
Phlyctenular Conjunctivitis, and had to lead the class in shouting
the spellings behind me. But it was all fun, and nobody has ever
forgotten them."

"We loved seeing his cheerful, lively face," commented another
of his students, Malathi Chinnappa, many years later. "All his
lectures were packed with humorous anecdotes and rhymes relat¬
ing to every aspect of ophthalmology. How well I remember his
lecture on trachoma, and when I am again confronted with this
problem in western Australia, what he taught me comes vividly
back to my mind."

Victor was surprised and delighted to find in one of his classes
Mary Ali, his first Caesarean baby, brought into the world some
twenty years before in Bilaspur. Of course he tried with these, as
with all his students, to lure them into the field of ophthalmology,
especially the young women with fine, slender fingers peculiarly
suitable for ophthalmologic surgery. Yet never did he minimize
the dedication or labor demanded of the vocation. "Ophthalmol¬
ogy is a jealous mistress," he would insist, "and will not tolerate
precious time to be squandered in pursuits that are of second¬
ary importance." And to Victor all other pursuits came in that
category.

Although memorization of subject matter was important for
examinations, especially in India, Victor stressed techniques of
action rather than recitation. He gave them a knowledge of good,
sharp instruments and their use rather than the usual method just
before examination of taking a number of instruments on a tray for
them to memorize: "This is an iris forceps. . . . This is a von Graefe
knife.. . . This is a de Wecker's scissors." He considered that usual
approach to be nonsense. Let them use the instruments doing an
actual operation on a dog's eye mounted in a hole on the top of a
small wooden box, simulating the orbit. Students went into the
scrubbing room with him, scrubbed up, and helped him operate.
With this background of two sessions of an hour each, they became

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

173

able to handle fine instruments, care for them, and be skilled in
their practical use. This technique paid off.

"Dr. Rambo," a university examiner said to him after his second
year of teaching, "the Vellore students are the best prepared of any
school which we examine."

In the same way, forty years earlier. Dr. Ida's first class of four¬
teen medical students —only women, as the amused British medi¬
cal officer had belittled them—had not only passed their first
year's examinations but in the process had led all the medical
schools in the Madras Presidency.

Dividing his time between two hospitals far removed from each
other, Victor found, created drawbacks as well as satisfactions. He
had even less time with his family. In August or September, Louise
would come from Kodai to Vellore with Tommy, and they would
board in one of the hospital bungalows until the last week in
October, when it was time for the older children to return from
school. Mungeli was still home. Victor would join them there for
the winter months.

In Mungeli, the hospital work in the late forties showed steady
progress under the leadership of Dayal Sukhnandan. Philip James,
after a year's training in pathology in Philadelphia, plus study in
leprosy at Carville, Louisiana, was back on the staff. Dr. Christ¬
opher Deen, who had come to Mungeli in 1946 from Miraj as an
intern and taken the two-year, short "MB" course at Vellore to
upgrade his degree to M.B.B.S. (the basic medical degree in India),
had been loaned to the north India massacre-relief team of the
Christian Medical Association and been cited for his heroic service.
He was now back in Mungeli as Dayal's assistant. Victor arranged
for him to go to Wayne University Medical School in Detroit for a
residency in ophthalmology.

Thanks to Victor's contacts with the American Board of Oph¬
thalmology, a number of ophthalmologists were coming to
Mungeli for short periods at their own expense, gaining tremen¬
dous experience in eye surgery and the many eye diseases preva¬
lent in India and at the same time making an important contribu¬
tion to the work. In 1947 there was Dr. Russell Roberts of Durham,
North Carolina, who stayed a year; in 1948 Dr. John Gilmore of
Santa Monica, California; in 1949 Dr. Robert Moses. Many others
would follow during the fifties.

Two Dodge panel trucks with trailers had come through gifts of
the Teachout Foundation, one for Mungeli, one for Vellore. It took
three days of driving to take the one from Mungeli to Vellore, 1020
miles by road. Victor and his assistant spent their nights and noon

174

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

rests in mission stations when possible, begging for shelter like
tramps. They never knew where they might spend the night, for
there might be all sorts of delays, as once when the trailer broke
down and they had to find a village blacksmith to make repairs.
The seams were welded for the paved roads of the West, not the
rough, stony tracks that often faced the Indian traveler. The van
was a boon when, soon after he began work in Vellore, Victor
attempted to start eye camps there; they were by then a regular
part of the Mungeli program.

He planned the first Vellore eye camp in 1948. Dr. Gurubatham
had already experimented with the idea and held a couple of
camps with the help of a team from central India, but this was the
first to be held under Vellore auspices. The institution officials did
not offer much encouragement for the idea.

“Not enough funds to take on such extra projects," they ob¬
jected, "and too little staff."

"Unscientific!" scoffed department heads. "Beneath our high
standards to attempt surgery in rural areas."

But Victor had encountered official opposition before. He was
not afraid of defying authority when the cause demanded action.
He was the head of the eye department, and holding an eye camp
was his business. It would cost the hospital nothing, and if a few
members of his loyal staff chose to spend a few hours of hard labor
when they might legitimately have been off duty, that was their
business.

The site picked was Gudiyattam, a town twenty-five miles away
in which Vellore had a small branch hospital. An evangelist, Eddie
Bedford, became the "teller of good news," going on his cycle into
surrounding villages. On the day specified, a Friday, when the
routine work of the week was ended, Victor set out in his van with
a small team of two doctors; one nurse, Sosamma; a pharmacist,
William Swamidasan; and an attendant. One of the doctors ac¬
companying him was Anna Thomas, a member of the class of 1942,
the first class to be admitted for the M.B.B.S. course. Although
planning to specialize in maternity and child welfare, she was
doing her house surgeoncy at Schell Hospital.

Because the camp was to be held in the branch hospital, they
took no operating tables and a minimum of other supplies. Arriv¬
ing at the hospital, they found the street outside filled with an
expectant crowd; many of the people had been waiting patiently
since early morning. The hospital gates were shut tight.

"What's this?" Victor demanded of the gatekeeper. "Why aren't
these people let inside?"

The man shurgged helplessly. He did not know. He was just

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

175

obeying orders. He opened the gate to let Victor inside, then closed
it hurriedly.

The nursing superintendent looked as helpless as the gate¬
keeper. She was sorry, but it was impossible for the camp to be held
in the hospital. After all, this had always been a hospital for women
only, and she also had been told. . . .

Victor went back to the van and explained the situation to his
team. It was obvious what had happened. The administration had
taken this way to balk what it considered an ill-conceived scheme.
He was not disturbed. "Folks, let us pray," he said, smiling at their
stricken faces, "that we may find a place."

"Yes," said Swamidasan in relief. "God will find us a place."

They drove through the streets making inquiries. Schools? No.
Classes could not be disturbed. The government hospital? It was
full, and besides, the possibility of infection from such a motley
group would be too great.

A man they met on the road recognized the van and stopped it.
What, he inquired, had brought them to Gudiyattam? When they
told him their difficulty, his face lighted. Oh, yes, he knew the eye
hospital well. He had had cataract surgery done there himself by
Dr. Gurubatham. And he had a mill that they were welcome to use.
Come, he would show them. Taking him into the van, they drove
to the edge of town and inspected his building. Eagerly the miller
showed them a room in which laboring groups met for delibera¬
tions. Would not this do? It was stacked with a conglomeration of
grain bags, boxes, and other miscellany, and was very dusty. But it
had a cement floor and a solid roof. Victor looked to his team for
confirmation. He was not disappointed. They would all help to
clean it.

"God bless you, brother." Victor had learned that much of Tamil,
although most of his knowledge of the new language would con¬
tinue to be confined to such necessary directions as "Look up,"
"Look down," and "Close your eyes." Fortunately all classes at
Vellore were held in English, for students came from a dozen
different language areas.

The patients waiting at the branch hospital were brought to the
mill in relays by the van, and examinations were started. Mean¬
while Bedford, Swamidasan, and others were working tirelessly to
clean the building and set up an operating theater. As there were
no proper tables, they improvised them out of benches. It was
midnight by the time all the patients had been examined, those
needing surgery set aside, and the place made ready.

Early the next morning Victor and his two doctors started operat¬
ing. The work went on and on. A tea had been arranged for them in

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

the afternoon, but there was no time for tea or even rest. The only
one not surprised at the progress made was Sister Sosamma
Kuruvilla. Where, wondered Victor, did she get the supplies for so
many operations? She was never at a loss. If they had gone ahead
and done another hundred, he was sure she could have produced
them—pads, bandages, and sheets—quietly, competently, and
when needed. When the sheets to cover the eye operation fields
ran out, she put the used ones through a strong bichloride solu¬
tion, wrung them out, and had them ready to use again.

The mill owner tried to provide space in various places for the
patients, but it was difficult. Many were placed on mats in the
operating room itself. They operated until the patients on the floor
were so close together that they could not walk between them.
Then when they were nearly through they took down one “table"
and laid patients on the floor beside the one remaining; then they
took up that table and set it against the pillar in the center. The
whole room was full. It was nine o'clock when they finished the
sixty-ninth operation.

There was one observer who was far more excited over the
success of the venture than Victor and his team. "Tell me again this
wonderful thing Dr. Rambo is doing," demanded Dr. Ida, ready in
her car long before seven o'clock, the hour specified for starting on
this new adventure. "What is this 'eye camp,' as he calls it?"

Not for years had she been so excited as on this trip to Gudiyat-
tam. It was like pioneering all over again, for it was to Gudiyattam
that in the early days she had traveled once a week for a dispen¬
sary, first by train and jutka, then by her little one cylinder Peugeot.
On those trips she stopped at certain stations along the way to treat
patients, a technique that had developed through the years into
"Roadside," traveling dispensaries that went out on a network of
roads around Vellore and in a single year might treat over two
hundred thousand patients.

Arriving at the mill, she was soon in the thick of the excitement,
helping, watching, her hands as deft, blue eyes as sparkling, feet
as brisk at seventy-eight as they had been at forty-five. She stayed
until the end. Riding home through the long avenues of tamarinds
and banyans, she could hardly contain her delight. "I've never
seen anything like it," she said exultantly. "And to think they're
going to do it at least twice a month!"

"If they can get the money," reminded one of her companions
grimly. "And if the hospital authorities give their approval."

"If! Money!" Dr. Ida's blue eyes blazed. Did anybody think lack of
money could stop an idea like this? Today sixty-nine blind people
had been given sight. Soon there would be a hundred; in a year, a

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

177

thousand; in ten years, who knew how many? She had dizzying
visions: Fewer beggers lifting sightless eyes and wailing, "Kan
teriathu, I'm blind!"; instead, ten thousand people crying,
"Whereas I was blind, now I see!" Somehow she knew that the tall,
lanky surgeon with the swift, tireless, steady hands was an in¬
trepid dreamer, as relentless in purpose as herself. There would be
no more ifs in his vocabulary than there were in hers. Nor would
the disapproval of authorities keep him from his goal.

Sixty-nine operations! Victor had seldom ended a day more
weary. But in the courtyard outside where the patients' families
were gathered, many of them children, he summoned energy to
make faces and joke with them, even do a little jigging, sending
them into gales of laughter. William Swamidasan was left to care
for the patients, using the second operating bench for what sleep
he could get, which was little. He was on twenty-four hour duty,
bringing food and leading those who had no family to the toilet
improvised in a corner. There was one other attendant and a
sweeper to help, but it was William, he who had said "God will
find us a place," who took the brunt of the continuous care.

Victor went out every other day to dress the patients' eyes.
Always he tried to take some of his students with him, a lesson far
more potent than any taught in the classroom. At the end of ten
days, every patient was discharged with his vision at least partially
restored. Victor's first camp at Vellore was an outstanding success.

Perhaps it was partly Dr. Ida's enthusiasm that slowly eroded
the opposition of the hospital authorities to eye camps. Still, there
was no money for them in the budget, and Victor called once more
on his committee to provide funds, which it did. He stubbornly
persevered in holding camps as often as possible—"Mobile Eye
Hospitals" he preferred to call them, but because of its brevity and
informality the designation of eye camp persisted—but difficulties
continued to mount. When complaints came to Dr. Lazarus that
the teams were working too close to some clinics where people
came and paid for services, she ruled that before they could hold a
camp they had to have official permission. But Edward Bedford,
their "teller of good news," knew the country well and usually
found places where they could operate from eight in the morning
to eight in the evening. It was on one of these that Edward found
his wife, a nurse from Kerala who was working for a mission near
Bangalore.

As members of the staff visited eye camps, they became ardent
converts to the project. One of these was Brigadier General
Wilson-Haffenden, who, after retiring from his post of commander
of the Madras area of the British army, became general superinten-

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

dent of the hospital. His first meeting with Victor took place when
he and his wife were entertained by the students at College Hill,
and there was Victor giving a hilarious demonstration of tap danc¬
ing on a table top in the the students' commons!

"If that's a missionary in action," decided the army man, known
to his friends as "Haffy," "I'm going to feel thoroughly at home."

One day he accompanied Victor to an eye camp twenty miles
from Vellore, driving him in the hospital jeep. Even before they left
the city he was given a sample of the other's unexpected behavior.
As they turned around a policeman on point duty directing traffic
with all his magnificent dignity, Victor leaned out and handed him
a sweet that Haffy had just given him. "This will do you more good
than it would me, brother," he said with his beaming smile. Haffy
would never forget the look of amazement on the policeman's face.

Before they reached their destination, they were held up by a
large tree that had fallen across the road. A crowd of villagers had
collected and was regarding the encumbrance helplessly. Victor
was soon talking with one of the bystanders who could speak
English.

"When did this take place, brother?"

"Early this morning. Sahib."

"Was anybody hurt?"

"No one. Sahib. No one was near at the time."

"Then let us pray and thank God that you have all been spared.
To show our thankfulness we will clear the tree out of the way so
that I can go on and give sight to all the blind people waiting for me
at the next village."

Prayer was fervent but brief. The tree was cleared away in a few
minutes, and they were on their way. Arriving at the village, they
found that the schoolhouse had been prepared for the camp. A
crowd of over a hundred was waiting. After further prayer, exami¬
nations took place, and a label giving the name of the operation
desired was sewn on the blouse or shirt of each surgical patient.
Others were treated, and some told to come back at the next visit in
a few months.

Haffy watched the ensuing action with amazement. The team
worked with clocklike precision. While at one table a student
prepped a patient, shaving eyebrows, cutting lashes, and giving
anesthetic, at another Victor was skillfully removing a cataract, and
at a third his assistant surgeon was stitching an eye and bandaging.
The patients were then laid out in two rooms, one for men, one for
women. Supplies of milk powder sufficient for ten days, sent by
the World Health Organization, were left in charge of the nurse
who remained to care for the patients.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

179

Haffy would not have missed the climax for all his army medals.
Never would he forget the joy when he returned with Victor and
saw the bandages taken off.

“How many can you see?" Victor would ask, holding up one,
two, or three fingers.

"Onnu," " rendu ," "mundru," would come the joyful replies. One
old woman who had been blind for fifteen years shouted with the
tears running down her face, “I can see, I can see!" She was not the
only one weeping for joy.

On August 14,1947, just twenty-four days before his sovereignty
over the country ended, his imperial majesty the king emperor of
India awarded to Victor the highest honor possible for a person in
his position, the Kaiser-I-Hind Medal for public service in India.
Because Victor was unable to go to Delhi at the time for the decora¬
tion, it was given to him in Nagpur the following year by the
governor of the Central Provinces, renamed after independence as
Madhya Pradesh. It was an oval-shaped badge in gold with the
royal cipher on one side. It was the first of many such honors
coming to him through the years, and it was his initiation into a
distinguished company on the Vellore staff, including Dr. Ida and
Dr. Lazarus.

Thanks to the Rambo Committee, Victor was able to travel in
1950 to the International Congress of Ophthalmology in London. It
was a rewarding trip, with stops all along the way; in Cairo,
marveling at the treasures of King Tut; in Greece; Rome; Zurich;
and Paris. His only disappointment was in failing to get a visa to
visit the mission hospital in Kuwait. In Paris he was told that the
plane he would take to London was not the six o'clock flight as
scheduled but the seven o'clock. Why? No reason was given. O.K.,
Lord , he thought. There must be some reason. Guide me all the way. On
the plane he found himself sitting beside an official of the Kuwait
Oil Company.

"We will put our London office on your problem," he told Victor,
apprised of the situation. And before Victor left London, ar¬
rangements had been made for his visa for Kuwait.

In London he presented a paper on the early presbyopia in India,
the first international gathering at which the subject had been
discussed. Formerly it had been taught and presented in all
textbooks that there was one human table of accommodation
applicable to all people of the earth. But investigation had proved
that different peoples have an accommodation change from youth
to old age differing from others, and that people who live closer to
the equator have earlier need of reading glasses.

In England Victor also met Bill, who had graduated from Kodai

180

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

that June and was on his way by ship to become a student at
Lafayette College in America.

The Kuwait official had made good his promise. At Basra Victor
was met by a private plane and taken to Kuwait, where he visited
Doctor and Mrs. Lewis Scudder at the mission hospital. And the
oil!-he saw it coming in such quantitities that in one place a pipe
twenty-four inches in diameter was used for one well, with no
pumping required. One might have thought that the very center of
the earth would become hollow. He stopped at Bahrain, where in
the mission hospital he met his old friend. Dr. Paul Harrison,
missionary for many years in Arabia; and Dr. Jacob Chandy, who
was to become head of neurosurgery at Vellore.

The university authorities had decreed that the head of the
Vellore eye department must be a full-time resident to get the
necessary accreditation, so in 1950 the family moved to Vellore. It
was a difficult transition, for it meant exchanging the roomy bun¬
galow in Mungeli for smaller quarters in the growing, crowded
college and hospital, sharing the second floor of a small bungalow
with another doctor; but Louise accepted any inconvenience as
cheerfully as the time in each hot season when she had rolled up
the beautiful Persian rug and packed for the long journey to the
hills. The new home was adequate, well furnished, and comfort¬
able. At least there would no longer be the months of separation
when she was in Mungeli and Victor was in Vellore.

For the next two years they lived in the small bungalow on the
college campus, sharing the upstairs with another family, while Dr.
M. D. Graham, a woman pediatrician, occupied the ground floor.
Now Louise as well as Victor was absorbed into the Vellore family,
winning the affection and admiration of all for her sweet serenity
and friendliness, while Victor delighted, amused, amazed, and
occasionally slightly shocked others with his exuberance and un¬
predictability. It was not surprising that both students and staff
were soon chuckling over some of these displays of the unex¬
pected: his stopping the car at an intersection and getting out to
pray with the policeman on traffic duty or, if he had committed a
slight mistake in obeying the traffic rules, giving the policeman a
salute and such a broad smile that the officer completely over¬
looked the error; his picking up children along the road when
driving, giving them a jolly ride, then taking them to the hospital
and asking the nurses to give each one a spoonful of shark liver oil
to prevent keratomalacia; or his calling the nursing sister in the
morning to find out about a particular patient or the schedule of
operations, then at the end of the conversation praying so long into

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

181

the phone that the sister had to terminate the call with an "Amen"
at the other end.

It was sometimes difficult to tell whether this lengthiness of
petition was due wholly to fervor or partly to expediency. Once
when Dr. H. G. Conger, head of the visual aids department of the
Methodist Board of Missions, was visiting Vellore, Victor asked
him if he would like to see a cataract operation. He accepted the
invitation with alacrity, donned mask and gown, and accompanied
the surgical team into the operating room. The patient was
prepped and anesthetized.

"It's our custom to offer prayer before every operation," Victor
told him. "Would you like to do it?"

The guest made the petition short, thinking brevity was ex¬
pected. "Let's pray some more," said Victor, and he did so at some
length; possibly, thought Dr. Conger, because he needed more
time for the anesthesia to work?

Victor's jigging made him very popular with the students. They
called for it at all times and in all places, and he was willing to oblige
whenever it was appropriate: at student entertainments; athletic
events; even in the classroom, using desk, table—whatever—in
lieu of a stage. Being Victor, he zipped into each act with all his dash
and verve, much to the concern of Louise. "Oh, Vic, do be careful!"
she could often be heard to admonish.

Once Victor decided to teach young Victor Choudharie tap danc¬
ing. The only convenient place was the main road in front of the
college. While he was doing a professional job and his pupil was a
reluctant learner, a number of city buses arrived from both sides
and started honking. Were they trying to clear the road or provide
music for the exhibition? he wondered. Victor took it for the latter
and continued the lesson. After a few minutes he had some of the
drivers getting out to join him and attempting some of the steps,
the passengers on the buses providing an impromptu if not impa¬
tient audience.

Victor considered few places inappropriate for giving pleasure
with his jigging. Once, some years later when he was staying only
briefly in Vellore, Dr. Ruth Myers, the microbiologist who was then
working at the Leprosy Hospital at Karigiri, was unable to get to
College Hill to see him, so she drove to the railroad station at
Katpadi, located between the two places, to catch him as he was
leaving to attend an ophthalmological meeting in Bangalore. They
sat in her car and talked and prayed until she feared he would miss
the train. Then, just before he went through the doors to the tracks,
he called out to her and went into a brisk clog.

182

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

"Imagine," she commented later with relish, "the grins and
stares of the dozens of persons watching, coolies, passengers,
idlers, those waiting for new arrivals!"

He once agreed to do a tap dance at one of the medical college
entertainments, but he embarrassed some of his audience by be¬
ginning and ending the clogging with prayer. And why not? Prayer
came as naturally to him as any other activity—more so. Then
there was the time when he led prayers in the college chapel one
morning and showed how he combined morning prayers with his
daily calisthenics, bowing low and bending deeply before the
Lord, then lifting his arms high in adoration and praise. Imagine
the shocked face of the Anglican chaplain who was in the audi¬
ence. "Physical jerks—in chapel!" muttered the ecclesiastic as he
emerged from Dr. Ida's beautiful octagonal house of worship. But
the two men came to appreciate each other as they became better
acquainted.

"There is only one Vic (fortunately, some people think!)" com¬
mented Naomi Carman, wife of the long-time director of Vellore.
"But in him, witnessing and prayer are so natural and exuberant
that it is profoundly moving, even if at times embarrassing. And
when we faced difficulties or sorrows, how helpful it was to have
him pray with us and lead us directly to the comfort and strength of
God's presence, as simply as a child coming to a parent!"

Helpful, he certainly was. Still, at times he was also definitely
embarrassing. There was the time when he went to see the De-
Valois family (Vellore missionaries) off on their ship at Cochin and
stopped to have a farewell prayer on the gangplank while the crew
waited impatiently to pull it up; and when he was carrying on a
long-distance telephone conversation with a mission official, try¬
ing unsuccessfully to persuade him to agree to some project. "Let's
talk to God about it," said Victor, and he proceeded to do so at
some length.

"Vic, that's enough," said the official. "You are connected to me,
not to God, and I'm paying for this call."

"It was always difficult to work out problems with Vic," con¬
fessed another of the Vellore staff, "because he would always
resort to 'Let us pray about it' and proceed to tell you in telling God
what he wanted done!"

Victor was not above using prayer as an instrument of reform; it
was more effective, he found, than advice or sermons. Smoking
was anathema to him, a habit he considered both dangerous and
sinful. It was the one failing, he thought, of Dr. John Carman, the
dedicated and competent Vellore director for many years. He
smoked the cheapest Indian cigarettes, the brand called Char Mi-

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

183

nar. One could see the packet all the time in the pocket of his nylon
shirt. How could he approach such a responsible and upright man,
known to be somewhat abrupt? One day Victor met his superior at
the entrance of the director's bungalow.

"John/' he said, "let's have a word of prayer," a request the
director could not very well refuse. "Lord," Victor prayed, "if You
want John to smoke—well, I have nothing to say. Amen." It was a
ploy that often worked, and many gave up their smoking because
of Victor's persistent urging, both to God and to themselves. Dr.
Carman did not, however.

Nor did the approach prove effective with a young medical
student who was smoking a cigarette on the street corner while
waiting for a bus going to the college. As he boarded he saw Victor
seated by the window not far from the only vacant seat. When the
bus started Victor came to him and gently chided him for smoking,
told the young student to bow with him there on the bus, and then
prayed with him all the three miles to College Hill. "I thought we
would never get to the college stop," confessed the young man. "It
never seemed so far before."

Victor was more successful with another young man, but not
because of prayer. Once on a train he came across a Muslim co¬
traveler who was smoking.

"What is your name?" he asked with his usual friendliness.

"Ibrahim," was the reply.

"But you know," observed Victor with his beaming smile,
"Abraham never smoked."

Immediately the Muslim extinguished his beedi.

Although such anecdotes were chuckled over and treasured by
his Vellore associates, there was no amusement, only sincere admi¬
ration, in the tributes that many would later accord him.

"Vic never spared himself," said one missionary colleague. "His
examinations were always thorough and gentle, and his concern
so clearly manifest. Even when technically on vacation, he was
available for eye tests and treatment at the school in Kodai, a
helpful service for fellow missionaries and local residents, with the
nominal fee going to help finance eye camps on the plains."

"His life is one abounding in LOVE for his neighbor," declared
Ed Bedford. "He regards every patient rich or poor as worth the
world."

"What happy memories we have of Vic!" Naomi Carman was to
recall. "He is so dedicated, so stimulating, so unexpected, and so
lovable!"

One morning she was riding in his car from College Hill to the
hospital, and a group of schoolboys flagged him down, asking for a

184

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

ride. Of course they expected him to let them out at the high
school. "Sah, sah, this is where we get down!" they shouted as he
drove past it. Victor went blithely on the few more blocks to the eye
hospital, where he insisted that all have their eyes tested before
going to school.

"Victor believes all things are possible with God's help," was
Naomi's assessment, "and he accomplishes things no one else
could have because of his childlike faith."

One hot Sunday afternoon, he urged Naomi to go with him to a
baptismal service at the little Tamil church in which Dr. Ida had
worshiped through the years. The Church of South India allows a
choice of baptism, sprinkling or immersion, and to Victor's satis¬
faction the candidate, one of his workers, had chosen the latter
form. The church had built a cement baptismal pool out in the
yard, but it had not been used frequently.

Arriving at the church, they found an atmosphere of consterna¬
tion. The pool had been painstakingly filled with many buckets of
water that morning, but it had developed cracks, and the water
had all leaked out. It would take hours to bring the needed water,
and it would doubtless leak out again while being filled. Victor did
not hesitate.

"Let's use that fire hydrant," he said, pointing to one nearby,
"and fill it quickly."

Everyone objected. It was locked. Only the chief of police could
authorize the fire department to unlock it. It was Sunday after¬
noon, and the chief would be taking his siesta at home. He was a
Hindu and would never authorize the use of the hydrant for such a
purpose. Unheeding, Victor dashed off to the chief's house, used
all his powers of persuasion, went on to the fire department, and
returned to the church with a fireman. The tank was filled quickly
and, with the aid of these Hindu officials, before the water could
leak out again the baptism of an outcaste menial worker was
hurriedly performed. Surely this was another "wondhap."

Victor's powers of persuasion were enhanced by a quick wit and
geniality that got him out of many awkward situations. On an eye
camp at Padavedu he happened to enter a Hindu temple with his
shoes on. The temple priest faced him in shocked horror. "Sahib,
no one enters this temple wearing his shoes!" It was a tense
moment. Victor never allowed superstitious beliefs to interfere
with his way of life. Yet the opposition of the priest might jeopar¬
dize the success of the camp.

"Brother," he replied in the friendliest of tones, "the soles of my
shoes are made of rubber, not of leather."

The priest left the place quietly, his hot temper cooled.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

185

Life on the college campus during those years at Vellore was
blessed with rare fellowship. Some of the world's leading spe¬
cialists had been assembled, and Victor's eye camps were only one
of the "firsts" that were making medical history. Down in the
hospital Dr. Reeve Betts, eminent cardiologist, was performing the
first open heart surgery in India. Dr. Paul Brand was revolutioniz¬
ing the theory and treatment of leprosy with his techniques of
rehabilitation and his re-creation of a human hand out of a claw;
and Victor was training Paul's wife, Dr. Margaret, in the treatment
of eyes as related to leprosy. Also, Dr. Ida B. Scudder was making
notable gains in the treatment of cancer. The campus abounded in
these and other stimulating personalities. Besides Dr. Ida B. there
were the Carmans; Treva Marshall, dean of women students, who
had seen the college grow from infancy to lusty maturity; Dr. Jacob
Chandy, the country's leading neurologist; Dr. Ruth Myers, re¬
searching some of India's virulent plagues in her department of
microbiology; and Dr. Gwenda Lewis, the jolly and competent
anesthesiologist from Wales.

Victor in his exuberant love of fun might well have unintention¬
ally killed Gwenda. He was at a dinner party in Dr. Ida's big
bungalow, and Gwenda was sitting opposite him. Nuts and mints
had been passed, and Victor had a handful of peanuts.

"Open your mouth, Gwenda," he called. She obeyed, and he
threw a peanut with deadly accuracy, not only into her mouth but
all the way down to her esophagus. She did not have to swallow. It
went down and down and was gone. Victor paled. His relief was
overwhelming. If it had gone into her trachea instead of her
esophagus she might have died. Dear God , he prayed, thank You for
protecting Gwenda . 1 will never he so foolish as to throw anything into an
open mouth again.

In 1952 the Vellore years were interrupted by furlough. Fortu¬
nately Dr. Roy Ebenezer had come back from London in late 1950,
sufficiently trained to take over the department temporarily, al¬
though in the next few years he would have to take further gradu¬
ate study to qualify fully. Victor's year in America was marked
chiefly by events relating to family. He and Louise rejoiced with
Birch over his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania
Medical School and his marriage in June to Peggy Gordon, but
they sorrowed with him over surgery that involved the loss of a
kidney. They enjoyed reunion with Bill, who was a student at
Lafayette, and saw Barbara enter the College of Wooster. They
delighted in their first grandchild, Helen's baby, bom in 1950. But it
was a year of marking time. In India, five million blind eyes were
crying to be opened. Victor's fingers itched for his healing tools. A

186

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

dozen lives would have been all too short for what he wanted to
do, and already he was sixty-two.

He flew back to India in the summer of 1953 to be on hand for
four months of teaching at Vellore. Louise and Tommy would
follow later by ship. In the Zurich airport, Herr Grieshaber met him
with instruments he needed. Then it was on to India.

The two years he had been promised full-time by his mission to
Vellore were over, but he could not leave. Dr. Roy Ebenezer was not
yet recognized by Madras University for teaching purposes, so
Victor once more became head of the department of ophthalmol¬
ogy. But so able had the national staff become, a thing he had for
years worked for, that he now found he was not needed in the
administration of the eye department. Communication between
the official head of the department, himself, and the institution's
director had virtually stopped. It was both a delight and a frustra¬
tion. Perhaps once more, as with his own mission board, he was
too much the individualist to work in complete harmony with any
form of higher authority.

"Vic finds it hard," said one Vellore colleague, "to be bound by
the rules of any organization. He can't understand why new vision
for all isn't the first priority in medical education. (And when one is
with him, it's easy to be convinced that he is right!) Hence, his
running feud with administration, which has to consider the needs
of every department and the well-rounded education of the stu¬
dents. But in spite of disagreement on methods, everyone who
knows Vic finds him an inspiring example of a truly dedicated life
and a very lovable human being."

At least it was possible now to spend more time in Mungeli. The
hospital there was growing like a healthy banyan, thrusting down
roots of new buildings, new departments, and new outreach into
villages. Although there were now some half dozen doctors and a
dozen nurses on its staff, however, it would have no resident
ophthalmologist until Dr. Christopher Deen returned from his
postgraduate work in Detroit. During the winter months, when
eye patients came in throngs, Victor's services in Mungeli were
indispensable. His work that first winter was characterized by the
same difficulties as formerly—unusually dry, dusty weather, fail¬
ing equipment, and shortage of hospital personnel because four of
the staff, including Dayal Sukhnandan and his wife and Daya
Choudharie, were in America on study leave. But the work was
also notable for its improved facilities for care of eye patients in the
new Bentley Eye Ward and for treatment of cancer with the only
radium in the whole state of Madhya Pradesh. And the winter's
work was also made easier by the welcome volunteer help of Dr.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

187

JohnDiCicco of Massachusetts and Dr. L. F. Baisinger of California.

Yet Victor knew, and rejoiced to know, that this need of him was
only temporary. The Indian leadership he had brought into being
would soon be able to assume full responsibility.

Returning to Mungeli after his teaching months in October 1954,
he wrote home to America: 'The hospital looks forward to the
busiest season in its history. Dr. and Mrs. Sukhnandan and Daya
Choudharie are arriving from America this week. Already, with
the end of the monsoon, wards are filling up, and under the
tamarind and poinciana trees, families from the villages light their
cooking fires. May the light and warmth of the Gospel be kindled
in the lives of many as they learn of the love of God through the
service of this arm of the church in India."

Yet these years of the mid-fifties brought loss to Mungeli. "It is
good," Victor had written Hira Lai from America in June 1953, "to
think of your sixty years of service in Mungeli. What a big change
has been wrought! God has been working all this time, working
through you." The words had been almost a farewell tribute, for
death came to the faithful Indian just before Christmas in 1955. "A
great personality, a great Christian," Louise wrote home to friends.
"His funeral w T as attended by probably the biggest crowd the
Mungeli church has ever seen." With his going, Victor sensed that
he had come to the end of an era, and of course the beginning of
another.

But what was the new era? Where would it take him? "My
specialty enslaves me," he wrote during this uncertain period.
"Now as I grow older I want to more and more go out into
somewhere, and there are so many places where there is no
medicine, no Gospel witness, no doctor at all!" When the time
came, he knew, the way would be shown.

10

F rom time immemorial it had been the custom for Indians to go
on journeys, pilgrimages, in search of spiritual or physical
help, to temples, sacred rivers, mountain shrines, and the haunts
of gurus. Now the hospitals, both at Vellore and at Mungeli, were
such places of pilgrimage, and many traveled as far as to the head
waters of the Ganges at Hardwar or to the sacred river ghats at
Banaras.

In fact, one man came from that holy city itself, an elderly
Brahmin pandit whose eyes had developed cataracts. Hearing that
there was an eye hospital in Mungeli, far to the south, he loaded
himself and his servant on an elephant and traveled by easy stages,
taking a month for the 250 mile journey, as he collected food for the
elephant and donations for himself.

As the cool season began and Victor returned from his teaching
in Vellore, the numbers coming down the road to Mungeli Hospital
increased: grandmothers with cataracts, farmers with trachoma,
some lying on beds, a baby in a basket poised on its mother's head,
a man or woman in a hammock slung from a pole. They came in ox
carts, in buses, in sagging, overloaded taxis, and occasionally in a
private car. Down the road under the feathery branches of the big
tamarind trees they came, through the arched gateway informing
all who could read that this was the hospital. In 1955, 1353 eye
operations were performed in the hospital, 629 in the eye camps.

In Vellore the idea of the eye camps had fallen on fertile soil. The
dedicated Eddie Bedford seemed always able to find a favorable
location. They might be held in barracks furnished by the army or
inside rooms of an airdrome; many times they were held in a
schoolhouse. In one place where they expected to get mission
cooperation they were asked not to come, but the Brahmin who
was head of the school district gave the pupils a two-week holiday
so the camp could be held immediately. Many times they operated
in rest houses contributed by the government. An abandoned mill

188

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

189

made an excellent place, for there was usually a cement floor, and
they could place patients all around the machinery. All the patient
in the south of India needed was a mat and a warning to the
attendants if there was danger of his bumping his head and injur¬
ing his eye. In one place monkeys ran over the tiled roof, breaking
off a piece that hit the head of a patient recently operated on, nearly
causing the loss of the eye, which filled with blood. But the blood
absorbed, the congestion cleared, and the sight was saved. In Ar-
cot, where Dr. Ida B. went each week on "Roadside," a man moved
out of his main house and let them use it as an operating room.

In the village of Chittoor they operated in the chapel. Strangely
enough, church buildings were sometimes refused to them for
what was considered a secular purpose, even though the gospel of
Him who gave sight to the blind in the holiest of places would for
ten days be constantly lived and taught. Blindness, Victor knew,
was not confined to sightless eyes.

Eddie Bedford went to prepare the way in a distant village called
Pollur where no camp had been held and no Christian worker had
ever gone. "All who cannot see or are having trouble with their
eyes come here to me," he said, his usual announcement. "Doctors
and nurses are coming to the old, abandoned mill, and there with
great care your eyes will be tested and, if found to be operable, you
can get your sight. You will see again, SEE AGAIN!"

For hour after hour on the appointed day the blind came. Soon
the big mill room looked like an Indian railway station, with people
standing, sitting, and lying on every available inch of the hard
floor. At midday, Victor arrived with his team and the trailer was
unloaded—operating tables, distilled water, kerosene stoves, and
medical and surgical instruments. By late afternoon order had
been produced from the chaos, and the patients had been sorted
out and seated in four long rows, most with expressionless, up¬
turned faces. Some looked terrified. Presently Victor found himself
looking into the face of an old man, deeply lined and gaunt but
filled with eagerness and hope.

"Yesu is love, Yesu is love," the man murmured softly in Tamil.

Victor regarded him in amazement. How, he wondered, had this
man became familiar with the name of Jesus? "Seri, yes, brother,"
he said. "Yesu is love, and He is going to help me give you back
your sight."

Later he made inquiries. Twenty-five years before, a group of
south Indian laborers had been recruited to go to Africa to build a
sugar cane mill. A woman missionary there, seeing the Indians
without friends, learned a few words of Tamil and spoke to them in
short, three or four word sentences. One of these was, "Yesu is

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love/' This man had remembered it. He had not known who Yesu
was or why He was love. In fact he did not understand the word
love too well. But the words had sounded so sweet that he had used
them in worship ever since, as Hindus are accustomed to repeat
the name of Ram or Krishna or Vishnu. Now at last through
Poobalan, the team evangelist, he learned the meaning of the
words, and during the days of the camp he received spiritual as
well as physical sight. As a result, forty families in his village were
baptized into the Danish mission church.

The eye camp team functioned like a perfectly tuned orchestra,
from the driver, Samuel, to the chief surgeons, Roy Ebenezer, and
Victor. There were Sister Sosamma Ittykuruvilla and her student
nurses; Poobalan and Kristy, the compounders; Raj, the cook; and,
of course, Eddie Bedford. And if Victor was the orchestra director.
Dr. Anna Thomas was the first violin, supplying melody and
rhythm. A graduate of Vellore, she had considered specializing in
maternity and child welfare; but going out on her first eye camp
with Victor, she had immediately chosen ophthalmology as her
field and in ensuing years gone out on every camp possible,
becoming later for many years the head of the eye department. Her
earnest desire to give service to villagers—especially the
handicapped—and her fine hands, backed by a knowledge of
general medicine and surgery and then of eyes, meant the saving
of sight for many thousands; and her dedication to the gospel
brought a knowledge of Christ.

"Anna knows more hymns from beginning to end," Victor said,
marveling, "than any other person I have ever met."

Often in the semidarkness as they rode along the trail, Sosamma
would distribute songbooks, and the team members would follow
the words as long as they could see. But coming back in the dark,
sometimes close to midnight, Anna with her sweet voice would
become the leader. Whether in English, Hindi, Tamil, or
Malayalam, her own language of Kerala, and whether the song
was familiar or not, they would always follow. The weariness of
the long day would drop away. The melody and the words might
be Indian, British, or an American folk song, but the sound was as
hopeful and triumphant as the refrain from Handel's Messiah:
"Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened."

In 1955 Dr. Ida witnessed another eye camp. At eighty-five she
was still vigorous, filled with wonder and enthusiasm, although a
year later she would suffer a stroke that would slow her swift feet,
bend her straight shoulders, cloud her keen vision, and, worst of
all, dull her alert mind. One Friday afternoon, visiting little old
Schell Hospital, she watched the preparations and the crowding

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

191

into the ambulance of Dr. Rambo and two Indian doctors, nurses,
the cook, his helper, the evangelist, and others.

"How far this time?" she asked.

"About seventy-five miles," replied Victor, smiling. "We should
have started earlier, but this is an extra, you know. It has to be done
after hours, and I had a lot of operations to do first. We're using an
old cattle shed this time."

"And how many camps have you had so far?"

"This is the one hundredth, Aunt Ida, a real landmark. We've
done over 5,000 operations."

"Santhosham, happiness!" she exclaimed, her blue eyes aglow.
"I'll come out and watch tomorrow. We'll have a real tamasha of
thanksgiving!"

Victor was becoming more and more restless during this fourth
term of service. He was like a racehorse tied at the starting line,
with the sound of the signal gun and the thunder of hoofs in his
ears. There was so much to do and so little time to do it! With Dr.
Christopher Deen back from America, he was needed less at
Mungeli. Dr. Roy Ebenezer had the work well under control at
Vellore, but the University of Madras still failed to accredit him
with a Master of Surgery degree, which was the sole reason for
Victor's remaining at Vellore. In 1957 Victor was named president
of the All-India Ophthalmological Society, a signal honor for a
non-Indian and an experience that stretched his goals to limitless
horizons. Should he confine his work to a few hundred operations
each year that could just as well be performed by others when there
were five million blind in areas still untouched?

A few years before, he had been invited to head the eye depart¬
ment at Ludhiana, Vellore's sister college-hospital in the north; but
because of his obligation to Vellore, he had been unable to consider
it. In 1957, however, he was able at last to obtain Dr. Ebenezer's
accreditation from the University of Madras. Now there was noth¬
ing to stand in his way when another invitation came from
Ludhiana. As always when there came a major change, he had no
doubt about its accord with divine leading. He tendered his res¬
ignation at Vellore, and to his relief it was accepted.

Despite his frustrations, his contribution to Vellore had been
colossal. No one realized this better than Roy Ebenezer, his pupil
and successor. In an article contributed-lo the college and hospital
paper. Dr. Roy tried to express somthing of his love and esteem:

"His horizon for eye work at Vellore knew no bounds. He had
ambitious programs for post-graduate teaching for doctors and
nursing students, with the latest implements and facilities incor¬
porated in a larger eye hospital of 150 beds which would give the

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

best eye treatment in the East. Through his efforts many ophthal¬
mologists have come from Europe and America for training in
surgery. His great contribution to ophthalmology at Vellore and
what he did for the extension of the Kingdom of God in the
hospital, college, and villages can never be forgotten."

From Vellore, Victor and Louise drove north a thousand miles to
Ludhiana in the Punjab, and Victor started work in the college and
hospital founded many years before by an Englishwoman, Dr.
Edith Brown, honored by British royalty in her later life as Dame
Edith. Founded, like Vellore, as an institution for healing and for
training women, it also had been obliged to become coeducational
and upgrade its standards to fit government requirements. Living
quarters were at a premium, and Louise returned that fall to
Mungeli. Victor joined her for Christmas, and the day after they
went on a camping trip to Baiga land in the eastern mountains, a
combination of holiday, medical work, and wild animal stalking,
staying in Chada in a brick- and mud-walled two-room rest house.

The next day Louise wandered through the little Chada bazaar,
mingling with the shoppers and admiring the picturesque dress
peculiar to the hill tribe of Baigas: ropes of multiple strings of
colored beads; large, beaded hoops in the tops of ears; men with a
small turban wound twice around, long leaf pipe behind one ear,
hip-lenth jacket, loincloth and bare legs, carrying a tangia (axe) and
lathi (long pole); women with beads, bracelets, anklets, and ear¬
rings, a child slung in a sari tied over the shoulder; and hair, both
men's and women's, wound in a long loop at the back. The bazaar
would have done credit to a Woolworth's, with everything on sale
from saris and jackets, cups and saucers, jewelry, thread, lamps,
and matches to hair oil and skin cream.

Meanwhile Victor set himself up on the edge of the bazaar with
literature and medical equipment. Few adults were literate, but
children were beginning to attend school and learn to read. He sold
some books, gave out medicines for colds and fevers, and tested
eyes. He was delighted to meet an ex-patient from one of the eye
camps wearing cataract glasses, smiling broadly and much pleased
with his operation.

They went out on beats in the jungle, looked for peacocks and
sambhur stags, but saw nothing but two jackals and a large
wildcat. Only once had Victor had the luck of shooting a carnivore,
a few years before in this same jungle when Bill and Bob Schramm,
his Kodai classmate, had been with him. Victor had killed a beauti¬
ful panther with one shot—at least he hoped he had killed it. They
sat around waiting for it to move. Then one of the Indian men went

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

193

up and tickled its tail and discovered for sure that it was dead.
Villagers thronged around and carried it to the car. Presently Victor
found to his consternation that they had removed every one of its
whiskers, important for mounting.

"Why?" he inquired. They were very valuable, was the reply.
Why were they valuable? Because rightly processed they made
such effective murder tools. One could chop them up, give them,
minced and tasteless, to some person in his food, and the bits of
whisker would become barbed weapons causing multiple ulcerat¬
ing and fatal sores in the bowels. There would be no trace of a
murder weapon. Victor speculated with the idea of selling the
method to Agatha Christie! Not one of the mustache hairs was
returned to him, even when he asked for them. So his one big
trophy, his magnificent panther, had no beard.

He had no such hunting luck on this expedition. But at night
around a blazing fire, Khushman, cook, indispensable helper, and
family member, told tales of the Baiga folks and their ways. His
boyhood had been spent in these forest villages of Madhya
Pradesh, in the hilly country near Pendra. In his late teens he had
come to the mission compound at Pendra Road, looking for work.
Hired by a missionary family, the Menzies, he had shown a re¬
markable ability to learn and had eventually become their skilled
cook and "bearer." In 1947, when the Menzies had left India, he
had come to the Rambos and was to continue as their mainstay
until 1973, when he would resign to come to America to be with his
daughter, Ruth Julius, and her family.

Khushman was a remarkable person, a combination of Jeeves,
The Admirable Crichton, wildlife authority, and saint. He was as
able to prepare and serve a full-course English-style dinner as he
was to cook satisfying camp menus with minimal equipment and a
fireplace improvised from stones or brick. He picked up languages
quickly and knew Hindi, Chhattisgarhi (the dialect around Mun-
geli), Tamil, Punjabi, and English. Usually gentle and polite, he
could when necessary become stern and forceful. He had great
stamina and fortitude. Once he had walked many miles in the
forest to meet the family, not having received word that they would
come later and pick him up in the car. And with his daughter, a
nurse, and her doctor husband in Philadelphia, he would become
equally adaptable, traveling by bus to attend classes in center city,
keeping their apartment in perfect order, and supervising their two
little boys when Ruth and Satish were at work.

"And," Louise commented, "he is one of the finest Christians I
have ever known. He shared often in family prayers, and his

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

petitions were sincere communication, not formalities. His integ¬
rity and responsibility, his selfless devotion to our family and the
eye work were unfailing."

Now, simply but dramatically, he told of the Baigas. He de¬
scribed how they prepared and kept the tinder for their chak-mak
(flint and steel lighter), using the fiber of the silk-cotton tree, taking
a hollowed-out bel fruit with a small hole at the top to keep it in,
hanging it hole down so that even in rainy weather it stayed dry;
how they trapped peacocks, digging holes where they came to
feed; how they smoked out field rats that, unlike the house variety,
were fit to eat; how when he was a boy herding the family cattle
a tiger sprang on a cow. He had hit it with a stick, but it had
not released its quarry, so he had shouted and two men had
come running. One had hit the tiger with his axe so that it had
run off, but the cow had been mortally wounded. The memories
seemed to arouse in Khushman both nostalgia for his youth and
sadness for the many problems of his people. They talked of
the fear of the Baigas and other jungle tribes of officials and
others from the plains, and of their reluctance to accept new
ways of life.

"People of the forest areas," said Khushman, "will never be¬
come Christians individually. There must be groups of five or six
families at least, forming small churches to stand together and
withstand persecution."

Before leaving for bed Khushman paused at the back door,
looking into the moonlight, and called Louise to listen to a barking
deer in the forest.

One day on this trip Victor was summoned to a village by a man
whose son, twenty-two years old, was ill with smallpox. Two
others of his sons had died in this same epidemic, and this was his
last child of a total of thirteen.

Victor had had his usual periodic vaccination within three years.
Thank God, he thought, for Jenner, who discovered that the cow girls
who had had cowpox did not get smallpox. Arriving at the village, he
found people in various stages of recovery from the severe
epidemic that had been sweeping the area. The patient was in the
dark room off the courtyard. Victor had him brought out and
placed on a string cot. He was a pitiful and loathsome sight, cov¬
ered with pox, face swollen, eyes and lips encrusted with pus. In a
brass vessel Victor boiled forceps, cotton, hypodermic, and a
catheter and called for boiled milk and eggs. A woman stood by,
fanning away flies with a whisk made, apparently, of hair from the
mane or tail of a horse. Victor mopped and cleaned the eyes and
mouth and injected penicillin. Then, after many unsuccessful

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

195

attempts, he managed to pass the catheter into the esophagus and
give the boy 100 cubic centimeters (cc) of milk and eggs, injecting it
by syringe into the catheter, 5 cc at a time.

Returning to the patient later in the day, he found him in the
same dark room. Again he had him moved into the courtyard,
which once more filled with spectators. He tried to repeat the
feeding, but with no success. When he went the next time, he
found that the patient had died.

"He was the only one left," mourned the father, "to support us
when we become feeble, the only one of all our thirteen." Victor
mourned also. He was sad to lose a patient, but how much sadder
this father and mother with all their children now dead, the last
three going in this one smallpox epidemic.

For Victor the episode was not ended. After attending the pa¬
tient, while hunting, he managed to get several pricks in the thorn
patch, which brought the smallpox virus from his recent contact
with the patient into virulence through his system. As previous
vaccinations given routinely had built up his resistance, he was
able to throw off the infection with only a slight reaction, but the
center of vision in his left eye was seriously affected and for some
time posed a threat to his vision. Fortunately the trouble cleared in
due course, thanks to Dr. Deen, who treated him with cortisone. It
was his second narrow escape from loss of sight.

January and February were the busiest months for eye work in
Mungeli, and Victor spent them there, operating and organizing
camps. Louise saw Tom off for his last term at Kodai in mid-
January and began making preparations for breaking up the home
of nearly thirty-five years.

Back in Ludhiana in March, Victor plunged into the task of
teaching, developing mobile eye hospitals, and preparing for their
continuation during his coming furlough. He presided at the an¬
nual meeting of the All-India Ophthalmological Conference in
Indore, giving the president's address of welcome to India's
foremost specialists and professors, some of the finest in the
world. His approach was humble.

"I have neither the qualifications nor the ability to give an ad¬
dress," he said. "The greater part of my life has been spent in a
village thirty-four miles from the railway, tilling a comparatively
small piece of professional ground. My contribution to medical
teaching has been, I hope, just this, that the future doctors may
know how close and available are the villages of India, the real
India; that we professional men and women owe the villager
health; and that when the villager is served he repays with such an
excess of appreciation and devotion that life itself takes on an

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

exhilaration not found in any other way, or in any other place."

He proceeded with a thoroughly scholarly paper on ophthal-
mological problems in India that belied any impression he had
given of inexperience or incompetence.

One of his most rewarding experiences during those months
was a meeting with the prime minister. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
"I left a good chuck of my heart with Mr. Nehru," he wrote
Ambassador Bunker in April. "His interest in the eyes of India is
very great, especially is he touched by the eyes of children. The
program for the upgrading of the medical colleges of India, with
the mobilization to allow the benefits of the science of ophthalmol¬
ogy to each villager, brought a keen response. Given about
$100,000 for each of fifty institutions, it would mean reaching
50,000 more people with sight each year."

Always Victor attempted to challenge leaders of government,
both in India and in other countries, with the possibilities of huge
investments. He enjoyed meeting famous people, yes, and was
not above a bit of name-calling, but it was usually done for one
purpose only, to gain support for his cause in high places.

For Louise there was finality, it seemed, in every act: packing up
most of their possessions to be shipped to Philadelphia, where
they could be stored until needed in the accommodating dry base¬
ment of the D. M. Steam Mission; bidding farewell to the tearful
servants, many of whom had seen the children grow from infancy
through childhood to adulthood. It was like breaking all family ties
and leaving for a far country all over again.

Yet the change could not have been timed better. Tom was
graduating from Kodai that spring. All threads of the past were
neatly tied, the pattern of their weaving complete; tied, yes, but
not cut, for the work at Mungeli and Vellore would remain Victor's
vital concern—the sending of doctors and nurses for training, the
providing of equipment, and the giving of counsel to the Indian
leaders he had trained. In fact, he would continue to be officially
connected with Mungeli through the mission board.

The Rambos spent a week in Kodai for Tom's graduation, then
traveled by car to Cochin, visiting with the family of one of Victor's
former patients, a leader of the Cochin Jewish community. He took
them to his synagogue, showed them the scrolls of the Torah, and
presented them with two bottles of sacramental wine.

"Absolutely without alcohol," the priest assured them; tasting
it, finding it very sweet and palatable, Victor was convinced.
Someone else obviously hoped otherwise, for after they arrived in
America, the half bottle that was left mysteriously disappeared.

From Cochin they sailed on an Italian ship to Naples, where a

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

197

real adventure awaited them. Never had they possessed a car of
their own, the vans always having been property of the missions
although provided by the Rambo Committee. A friend, Harrison
Baldwin, had given them some money through the committee to
be used personally, and, adding to it some insurance money that
had come due, they had ordered a Volkswagen "Beetle" to be
delivered in Naples. Arriving there on a church holiday, they had
to wait a day, to the impatient Tom's frustration.

Now 7 began one of the most delicate operations Victor had ever
performed, driving a new car with a strange gear shift, left side
drive instead of right as in India, turn to the right instead of the left,
and obey all the Italian traffic rules!

It was one of the rare occasions in Victor's life when he welcomed
back-seat drivers. They passed through Rome, Siena, Como, and
St. Gothard Pass, which had just opened for the summer, although
there were still high snow banks on each side of the road; to
Switzerland, where of course they visited with the Grieshabers at
Schaffhausen. Victor's old friend Johan had retired, but his son
Ernst was just as much the perfectionist in creating fine surgical
instruments and just as generous.

Here he had the thrill of seeing Ernst forge his keratome from fire
to the first stage of manufacture, a job no one but Ernst could do.
Watching the fire heat the steel, a very special stainless steel that
took and kept its edge, Victor could appreciate why instruments
made here were so delightful to use, year after year.

On they went to Heidelberg, Marberg, the Rhine, the Brussels
Fair in the spring, Rotterdam, and finally New Amsterdam, where
they loaded the Volkswagen onto the ship to New York, arriving
about the middle of June 1958. There they were met by Birch and
Bill, and then they drove on to Philadelphia.

Wyck! That historic old mansion in Germantown that belonged
to their friends Robert and Mary Haines was to become home to the
Rambos that summer and during many more in the future, while
the Haineses spent their summers at their orchard farms in Berk¬
shire County. The oldest standing house in Philadelphia, from its
beginning in 1690 it had been owned and lived in by nine genera¬
tions of one family. The name Wyck (or Wick, as in bailiwick)
denoted jurisdiction, as of a village or mansion, and was derived
from the name of an English manor of Haines ownership. Other
traditions defined Wyck as the Welsh for "white," and the snowy
walls of the gracious mansion, enclosed with its gardens within a
high fence, fitted the designation perfectly. It was a palace com¬
pared to the mission bungalows of India, yet Louise was as much at
home with its priceless antiques and spacious vistas as she was

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

with the make-shift furnishings and crowded quarters of the mis¬
sion compounds.

It was an ideal place for a family reunion. They all came—Helen,
her pastor husband, Wesley, and their children, David, Victor,
Tom, and Alice; Birch and his Peggy, with their three, Beth, Bill,
and Jane; Bill, who had just graduated from the University of
Pennsylvania Medical School and was about to begin internship at
the University of Michigan Hospital; Barbara, in her third year of
nurses' training at the Western Reserve School of Nursing; and
Tom, now bound for the College of Wooster; with of course
Louise's mother. It was the last time the whole family would be
together for many years.

That winter Victor and Louise moved into the house of Margaret
Haines, while she spent the months in Florida; then they returned
in the spring to Wyck. "Wondhaps," certainly, this generosity of
their friends, although Victor always accepted such personal fa¬
vors as a matter of course, the proper and natural response to the
tremendous mission to which he knew himself divinely called.
Was that egotism? Many people would have called it that, and did,
including his own children. He was a complex man of diverse
qualities—supreme self-confidence and abject humility; pride
and self-negation. His daughter Barbara once gave these divergent
traits a shrewd and sympathetic appraisal.

"My father has a great ego. Mother jokes about it and says he's
the kind that wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse
at every funeral. He likes to be the center, have his ideas accepted,
take up challenges. I think that's the kind of person God needed to
do the work He gave him. When people meet him they don't forget
him. People will say, 'Twenty—thirty years ago I met your father,
and this is what he said and did.' Sometimes you find a strength
that when you turn it around becomes a weakness. This is his great
strength but also his undoing. He has a hard time giving up ideas,
doesn't like to change his direction once it has been set. It's uncom¬
fortable to be around a person with a life so totally dedicated."

For Victor, of course, any house was merely a stopping place
between sorties. Soon after arriving in Philadelphia, he had had a
complete physical examination that revealed severe parasitism.
For years he had suffered a rapid heartbeat when overdoing—no
pain, but an uncomfortable, irregular thump. He would speak to
his heart, sometimes aloud.

"Now look-a here. You're working for your Creator, and I'm
depending on you because if you give up. . . ."

"You must husband your energies," Dr. Elsom now warned him
sternly. "At your age and in your condition, you should put in no

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199

more than a half day's work." It was like trying to curb a racehorse
at the start of the home stretch.

At Harry and Jean Tiedeck's he met with the Rambo Committee,
now augmented by Tom Ringe and Barton Harrison, who had
taken the places of their deceased fathers, and by Clarence Kaiser
and Herman Hettinger. He tried to fill them with the urge to raise
more money for all his projects, Ludhiana now as well as Mungeli,
Vellore, and Sompeta, where the Coapullais were at work. He
collected (begged?) quantities of equipment for all these places and
then solved the formidable problem of getting it to India.

"Ten dollars," he told audience after audience, "will give sight to
one person. A mere ten dollars—think of it!—will literally restore
the eyes of a blind Indian child, man, or woman!"

He shuttled back and forth across the country, attending the
midwinter eye and ear course in Los Angeles, participating in the
Gill Memorial Lectures at the Eye Congress in Virginia, and speak¬
ing in church after church, wheedling, demanding, and all but
bludgeoning his startled audiences for support; and sometimes he
got it.

"What really moved us," commented Joyce Orr, who with her
husband, Jim, heard Victor speak at Northwestern Christian
Church in Detroit, "was the way he would interject a heartrending
plea for our nickels and dimes that we so wantonly spend on
candy, gum, etc. He would go down on his knees and plead with
us for those coins to help his beloved India. We were so moved that
even though we had three children with another to come and were
trying to make ends meet, we eagerly pledged $100."

Furlough: "A vacation," the dictionary defines it, "granted to an
enlisted man. ... A Lay-off from one's usual labor." It was not so
for Victor. His furloughs were as full and as committed to his life
purpose as his dawn to dusk days in India. If a few hours of
unscheduled time became available on his constant tours, he has¬
tened to fill them.

On one furlough Victor was driving with Raymond L. Alber,
pastor of the East Lincoln Christian Church in Nebraska, to attend
a banquet meeting. On arriving in Lincoln, he expressed his desire
to get some rest, because he had been on the road a long time.

"Let me take you to your hotel," offered Alber. "You'll have time
to rest before the banquet."

"Oh, no," said Victor. "I'd like to spend a couple of hours in an
operating room. Do you know of a doctor who could get me into
one in a Lincoln hospital?"

Alber immediately called a deacon in his congregation. Dr. Paul
Maxwell.

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

''Dr. Victor Rambo!" he exclaimed. "The Dr. Victor Rambo, the
world famous eye surgeon?"

"Yes," was the reply. "He is here asking to spend a couple of
hours in an operating room so he can rest."

An hour later Victor was in one of Lincoln's great hospitals,
getting his relaxation in one of the operating rooms. When Alber
picked him up two hours later, he looked like a rested man. At the
banquet later, he noticed that Victor ate very little and spent most of
his time inspecting the eyes of some of the more elderly banquet¬
ers. Alber heard him say once, "Get that eye operated on im¬
mediately, do it tomorrow, do your hear, no more delay!"

The next day Victor was asked to go to a television station for an
interview. Alber would never forget the astonishment of the inter¬
viewer when Victor told him that he had removed as many as
sixty-five cataracts in one day, standing on the stone floor of a
chapel in India where the seats had been removed.

"How much money do you make as a surgeon on the mission
field?" the interviewer inquired. When Victor told him, he gasped.
"Couldn't you make much more operating in America?"

"Certainly," Victor replied, "much, much more. In fact, I spent a
year operating in America and made much more than I ever made
on a mission field in my whole life."

"Then why go back to India," demanded the interviewer, "when
you could get so much more operating in the States?"

"My friend," Victor replied, "When operating in America I never
removed a cataract that someone else would not remove if I didn't.
In India, every cataract I remove would not be removed if I did not
do it."

The interviewer was completely silenced.

On another furlough, his train was sidetracked in Sacramento to
make way for some troop trains. The delay might last five or six
hours. Victor started to call churches so that he might attend a
prayer meeting—and incidentally, of course, get an opportunity to
tell his story. Finally he called the Freeport Boulevard Christian
Church. One of the elders, Carl Schultze, was helping his wife,
Ellen, and other church women prepare for a family-night dinner.
The scheduled speaker was unable to come.

"Would you speak to us?" the elder asked hopefully. Of course
Victor would.

He had been on the train for several days. His hair was unkempt,
his suit was unpressed, and he certainly did not fit the popular
image of a pious missionary, but he soon had them enthralled,
especially the children, whom he asked to come forward. Victor

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

201

blindfolded one of them to simulate the feeling of blindness and
then had Jerry, the Schultzes' youngest, about five, lead him
around with a broom. Jerry was fascinated.

When he finished, Victor called on one of the men to close the
meeting with prayer. The man turned red and blurted, "I—I can't.
I don't know 7 how." Victor looked astounded and called on another.
He, too, refused. When the third man turned him down, Victor
erupted. "Isn't there anyone in this church who knows how to
pray?" he challenged. Immediately five-year-old Jerry raised his
hand and came forward. Victor smiled and put his hand on the
boy's head, saying, "And a little child shall lead them."

"Bow your heads," ordered Jerry. Ellen Schultze quaked. What
would come out? She had encouraged free expression in her chil¬
dren, and all three had vivid imaginations. Sometimes their
prayers were definitely unusual about things God must surely
have chuckled over.

"Dear God," said Jerry, voice loud and clear, "we thank You for
sending us Dr. Rambo. TTiank You for all the blind he has made see.
We pray for the blind of India. Amen."

No one in the room ever forgot that evening, especially the
Schultze family. Carl and Ellen directed a drive and sent hundreds
of pairs of glasses to India. As a teacher of worship for the National
Council of Churches, Ellen told of the incident often.

"So your 'chance' encounter," she wrote Victor, "had results that
you never dreamed of."

Victor had as friendly a rapport with children in America as he
did in India. He could relate to them on their level of communica¬
tion and understanding. Sometimes when speaking in churches
he brought along a little bottle of cataracts to show the children.
After one service, he led them into an adjoining room, showed
them the ophthalmoscope, had one child lie down on two chairs,
another play doctor, and let the children look into the eye of the
"patient."

Children, men, women, a stranger standing on a street corner
— all were recipients (victims?) of his inevitable overtures. It was
impossible for him to be in proximity to anyone, anywhere—on a
train, bus, airplane, in a waiting room—and not find out who the
person was and what his interests were; and, incidentally, he
would also tell him in some detail just who Dr. Rambo was and
what was his absorbing interest.

"We were so pleased to receive your letter this week," wrote a
fellow passenger on a British train, "and hope that you are enjoy¬
ing a well earned rest. We were so interested to hear about your

202

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

work in India." This encounter led to the sending of several
thousand pairs of used glasses through a Lions Club in southern
England.

He had no inhibitions about talking to anyone. Barbara was with
him once on a trip to Canada. They were having a meal in a
restaurant, and the waitress was standing by their table after
bringing their order. "Are you a praying person?" he asked. When
she said that she was, he said, "Then do please join us in giving
thanks." At first embarrassed, Barbara decided that, after all, it
was not an offensive question. The girl could have answered yes or
no. In fact, Barbara herself came to use the same question when
talking with her patients. It made a good opening for witnessing to
one's personal faith.

Again Barbara had a chance to observe her father's ability to
involve people in activity at all times and in all places when she was
finishing nursing school in Cleveland. Some of her friends wanted
to meet him when he came with his car to drive her back East. They
came and all were sitting around her room, talking. The atmo¬
sphere was formal and polite, the guests much in awe of the tall,
impressive visitor. Barbara still had some packing to do.

"Come on, girls, let's help her," said Victor, and soon he had
everyone at work putting books in boxes and wrapping packages,
all the while chatting as if he and they were old friends.

"When you're working together," he said, "you get to know
people." It had always been his philosophy, and he had never had
any compunction about putting anybody to work.

Wherever he went, Victor was still the doctor concerned about
people's eyes. On another furlough, Jane Brumaghim (she who
had raised the money for the Mungeli X-ray machine) told him of a
mutual friend, Maggie, who had undergone several operations for
an eye condition. Three specialists had told her she would never
see again. Glasses could give her no help. Jane brought Maggie to
Philadelphia, and Victor made an appointment with a doctor
friend to let him use his office. He spent several hours examining
Maggie, trying different lenses. As the specialists had said, noth¬
ing seemed to work.

"Well," Victor told her, "we've seen what man can't do, now
we'll see what God will do." He gave her a prescription and told
her to have it filled. "I know the place where you take it is going to
question it, because this prescription has never been written be¬
fore, to my knowledge, and I don't know how it's going to work,
but this is what I feel led to try."

Jane had the glasses made. That was on a Thursday, and on the
following Sunday she and Maggie went on a picnic, taking along a

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

203

book by great American poets. Maggie was a lover of poetry. As
they sat at the picnic table, she was presented with the book. She
opened it and proceeded to read at least fifteen pages with no
difficulty. A miracle? Certainly not. It was, perhaps, another
"wondhap".

During this furlough of 1958-59, Victor saw his work in India
blazoned for the first time across America's television screens. The
film produced by the Smith, Kline and French Pharmaceutical
Corporation of Philadelphia, M. D. International, dramatized sev¬
eral features of the work at Vellore—Dr. Ida surrounded by stu¬
dents in the sunken garden, village work conducted by the public
health worker, Pauline King, and a sequence of an eye camp, with
Victor himself examining patients and performing surgery. The
film was seen by an estimated nineteen million people. For him it
was triumph—and disappointment.

"A heartache," Victor commented, "because they do not men¬
tion our need, so people accept it as a government work needing
no help, so twenty million people get no challenge out of it, and we
get nothing out of it except pats on the back." Meanwhile Victor's
work pictured in the film was cut in half for the lack of three
thousand dollars.

In fall 1959 Victor sailed alone from Seattle for India, alone
because Louise remained in Philadelphia to care for her mother
who had undergone surgery for a strangulated hernia and was
enduring a long convalescence. Louise's brother, Tom, had been
having frequent heart attacks, so Louise's presence seemed im¬
perative. She rented an apartment for herself and her mother on
Greene Street in Germantown and for the first time bade good-bye
to her roaming husband with no idea when they might meet again.
Separations they were accustomed to, but seldom with half a
world between them.

On to Ludhiana he went, with more teaching, more hospital
work, some private practice, and, of course, eye camps. There
followed a year of intense activity, much travel, successes, failures,
and constant loneliness. Victor's letters to Louise were full of
details major and minor and expressions of a rare romantic love.

"How will you feel to be a missionary again? 1 go out into the
village into a sleeping bag and poor stew (Khushman had little to
work with) and overwork. But work has never been so reward¬
ing." . . . ,

That year he spent Christmas in Mungeli. "I am writing in the
little shed at the boarding school where eleven children who could
not get home for Christmas are staying. Six of them are watching
me type, with 'Oh's' and 'Ah's.' Bungalow is cold except in morn-

204

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

ing or evening when I have a fire and sit almost in the fireplace.
What fun and wonderful joy we have had in the Lai [Red] Bun¬
galow that is now cream colored and called Bungalow Number 3!"

In January he sent the welcome news that the Edinburgh Royal
College of Surgeons had awarded him the F.R.C.S. without
examination. "Am deeply touched and humbled."

In March he went out on a succession of eye camps with Jagir
Masih, driver and assistant organizer, Khushman, two staff
nurses, and Sister Ruby Holmes, a missionary with the Church of
England. She had had public health training but had been put in
maternity and was unhappy there, and she was delighted to fill the
need in Victor's mobile eye hospitals. "She is unbelievable," was
Victor's appraisal. "[She] is our secretary, keeps all our accounts as
well as being an exceedingly efficient nurse, and orders me about
at times." They went far into the Himalayan foothills.

"If there is a longer ghat and mountain side and canyon road I
have not seen it. It was Friday morning when we started and six
that evening when we arrived with a much too heavy trailer in
Pathankot. There we rested for the night and came yesterday over
a further 90 miles of mountain road, much of it with snow-capped
peaks about and scenery to make even an old traveling hand like
me just gasp and scarcely be able to take a breath, sometimes in the
beauty, sometimes in the danger, for there were times on hairpin
turns that were certainly complete turns. For thirteen miles there
were a lot of precipitous places being dynamited, and there were
overhanging places. . . .

"Two old women at the Kum Kalam camp after being blind for
six and three years respectively both looked out with the plus tens
and, seeing, just fainted away and fell on the floor. It was too
wonderful for them to stand. . . .

"If I die will the work that has been helped through me all these
years just flop? I pray not. Even though we do 1500 more cataract
operations this year than last, there is so much more to do!

"Dearest, my love and joy, my pride and my hope, I get so filled
up with the message of love I would send to you that I can scarcely
contain myself. . . . You wonderful (and sometimes perplexing as
every woman should be, of course) and dear and wise and gracious
woman!"

And on the back of a camp announcement for the village of Kum
Kalam, written in both English and Punjabi, he scrawled:
"Dearest, I went down the road walking along last night with my
arms swinging, hugging the air in the little moonlight alone, say¬
ing over with a little hum, 'She is mine. She is mine. She, Louise, is
mine.' Gladness filled my heart, and I really did thank God for

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

205

you, and for Him who gave you to me. A good camp at Kum
Kalam. BUT I WANT TO COME HOME/'

He did go home in June 1960. Louise's mother had died in May.
They spent another summer at Wyck, then left together in Sep¬
tember, flying to Switzerland, going by train to Venice, by ship to
Aden, and then by freighter to Bombay. To the surprise of Victor's
colleagues, they arrived in Ludhiana exactly when due, on Sep¬
tember 30. As yet there was no permanent bungalow available for
them, so they were given a room in Lai Kothi at the Medical
College, later a house in a staff area called Honeycomb Terrace. As
usual, the Longdon Circle of the Kensington Christian Church in
Philadelphia, one of their more loyal and constant supporters
through the years, sent them a substantial Christmas gift; and as
usual Louise sent thanks to the group in a letter to their close friend
Isabel Currie.

"Victor said right away that it would be a good idea to use it for
some rugs," she wrote, "probably the felt niimdas that are made in
Kashmir and are not at all expensive here. The houses here are
built for keeping cool in the hot weather—high ceilings, thick
masonry walls, cement floors—so when the temperature gets
down into the 40s or lower, they are a bit chilly. The numdas will
help to keep our feet warm, and we'll remember you all gratefully
as we enjoy them. . . . Day after tomorrow the eye camp team will
go to a village about forty miles from here for the fourth eye camp
since we returned from the States, and the last one until after the
New Year."

11

I five had not come here. . . .

JL Time and again the words beat against Victor's conscious¬
ness during the years of the sixties as the team from Ludhiana
thrust its lifelines far into the hinterland of the Punjab and beyond.

Ifzve had not come here this three-year-old child, whom we have
saved just by giving an injection of vitamin A, would have gone
blind.

This village woman would not be pleading, "Show me my baby,
please show me my baby, doctor!" and this light of joy would never
have come into her face.

This girl of fourteen, unable to open her eyes since she was four
because of inturned lashes caused by a strong caustic applied to her
eye lids by a quack would not know the comfort of lids that can
open and close without suffering and eyes that can see.

Never had the eye camp program been more encouraging or
more challenging. With Ludhiana as the hub, spokes were reach¬
ing out into a wide area covering not only the Punjab but also the
states of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. They were held, as
formerly, in a variety of places: schoolhouses, mission hospitals,
buildings attached to Sikh temples, and tents erected for the pur¬
pose by the district Red Cross Society. Always they were kept as
simple as possible without sacrificing a high standard of ophthal¬
mology and surgical technique. Equipment for diagnosis, includ¬
ing a slit-lamp microscope, and for surgery, folding operating
tables, instruments, sterile supplies, pressure cooker and medica¬
tion, was brought in the ambulance and trailer from Ludhiana.
Each camp lasted about fourteen days, one for travel, one for
settling in, one for clinic, two for surgery, and eight for convales¬
cence. They followed the same pattern: initial confusion with
crowds of patients, their relatives and interested bystanders mil¬
ling around; gradual establishment of order, with centers for regis¬
tering patients, testing vision, examination, and diagnosis; operat-

206

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

207

ing; wards for convalescence; development of a fine spirit of coop¬
eration as students, teachers, and local citizens got into the act as
enthusiastic helpers, carrying stretchers, guiding patients, and
holding flashlights for operations.

Often the village young people would join the camp team when
at the end of the busy day, all would relax after dinner. Sitting on
the ground around a pressure lantern (if there was no electricity),
all would sing hearty Punjabi hymns to the thumping rhythm of a
small drum and in the south to the melodies of the violin-playing
cook. Camps could be held on the plains only in the fall and winter
season, but as the heat mounted so did the teams, venturing
higher and higher into the foothills of the Himalayas, working in
remote villages until the coming of the monsoon rains. There
might be ten or twelve camps a year, with anywhere from five
hundred to a thousand operations performed. That the work won
favorable acclaim from government as well as local agencies was
evidenced by a signal honor paid to Victor in 1961.

"You will be pleased to learn," wrote the commissioner of the
Jullundur division of the Punjab, "that a Punjab Sarkar Praman
Patra has been granted to you in recognition of your services
rendered to the administration and public during the year 1959-
60." It was an award of which any foreigner might be proud.

Always Victor's primary concern was the training of young
Indians to follow in his footsteps. He could well be satisfied with
the eye specialists he had left behind him: Christopher Deen in
Mungeli; Roy Ebenezer and Anna Thomas in Vellore; as offshoots,
John Coapullai and wife in Sompeta, T. M. Thomas and wife in
Khurai; here in Ludhiana it was to be Arin Chatterjee, Richard
Daniel, and Chopra; and in Amritsar Daljit Singh.

Arin came to the college in 1962 as lecturer in physiology, but he
was also interested in ophthalmology. He volunteered for eye
camps and became so enthusiastic that in 1963 he went to Chan¬
digarh for a two-year residence for Master of Surgery in ophthal¬
mology. Returning, he became a member of the Rambo family,
adapting himself beautifully to their ways, never protesting at
having to eat bland Western food and even insisting on helping
with the dishes. If Khushman was not there, he would run to the
kitchen and start washing dishes before Louise could get there. A
Bengali from Calcutta, educated in one of the finest colleges, he
belonged to the Brahmo Samaj sect of Hinduism, worshipers of
one God and dedicated humanitarians. He was a perfectionist in
his work, and he became a skilled surgeon and teacher.

Victor was officially retired by his own mission board in 1962, but
the Rambo Committee assumed his support, and he was able to

208

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Dr. Arin Chatterjee performs a cataract operation by flashlight in a mobile
eye hospital. Banarsi Dass, R.N., holds the flashlight while
Victor observes.

continue his work in India all through the decade of the sixties and
into the seventies. The committee developed new vitality and
leadership through Raleigh and Joanne Birch (no relation to
Louise's family), active members of the Marple Christian Church in
Broomall. Raleigh, an engineer who had ably assisted in providing
parts for the village ambulances, soon became an efficient and
enthusiastic member of the committee, with Joanne an able ally It
was the Birches who arranged for a luncheon honoring Victor and
Louise in the Constitution Room of the Sheraton Hotel in Philadel¬
phia in September 1966, just before they returned to India for the
winter season.

During these years, life for the Rambos followed a consistent
pattern, most of the year in Ludhiana but about three months in
the summer back in America at Wyck. They were in Philadelphia in
July 1961 for Bill's wedding to Sara Williamson; there in 1962 to
inspect Bill's month-old baby, William M. Rambo, Jr., and to see
Barbara married to Dr. Tom Hoshiko, a Western Reserve medical
college professor, in July; then in September to speed Tom Rambo
off to graduate school at Ohio State University, and to welcome
Stephen Walters into the world at Marissa, Illinois. Victor flew to
India to be there for the teaching term, leaving Louise to come

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

209

again by freighter. The death of Tom, her brother, in December
brought sadness to a year filled with joyful events.

They lived literally in two worlds, and with all the comings and
goings there was frequent overlapping between them. "Since last
April," Louise wrote in November 1964, "we have followed for the
most part our usual migratory pattern: hill eye camps (Palampur
and Kulu); two hot, busy weeks in Ludhiana during which we
welcomed Barbara and Tom Hoshiko and little Kathy and turned
over our quarters to them for the summer; and two months in the
States.

"In Philadelphia we once more enjoyed the lovely hospitality of
Wyck. Victor regained the 25 pounds he had lost. We had a good
visit with Birch and Peggy and their three children in North
Carolina and on September 2nd we saw them off for Congo where
they will serve for three years. By mid-September we were back in
Ludhiana. Kathy had learned to walk. Tom's voluntary service in
the physiology department in Ludhiana had been greatly appreci¬
ated and both he and Barbara had made many friends. After a few
days of whirlwind packing all five of us left for Kulu, the first
post-monsoon eye camp; then the Hoshikos flew to Delhi and on
to Tokyo. Kulu was delightful—apple harvest time, the hillside
villages gay with masses of bright red chili-peppers and orange-
yellow com, spread out to dry on the roofs.

"Sadhinager, an old town about 40 miles from Ludhiana near
Ferozpur, was the site of our second camp. Though it was the
Dusserah holiday season, patients came in such numbers that we
were almost swamped. Altogether, from October 14th to 30th, 1415
patients were examined, and 163 operations were done. One of the
patients was an old man who gave his age as 120, later admitted
that it might be a mere 110, but no less. He did well and went home
happy with the results of his operation. Another patient developed
alarming symptoms a few days after his operation and gave the
nurses a bad time until they learned that he was an opium addict
and had not been getting his usual 'ration.' His relatives made
arrangements to get this for him, after which he convalesced
rapidly.

"About five minutes walk from the camp was a 300-year-old kila,
castle, whose owners were once rulers of this area. When we called
there we entered through a gate big enough to admit an elephant,
and found an amazing combination of the old and the new—in
one courtyard a modern farm tractor, in another an ancient open
carriage and a curtained cart such as upper class purdah ladies
used to travel in. The charming college-educated daughter of the

210

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

owner welcomed us in fluent English and showed us around. She
was not permitted by her grandmother to be seen on the streets of
the village, and could not visit the eye camp."

During one camp in the Kulu Valley, Victor saw a tall, obviously
Western woman moving among the patients. He recognized her
immediately, for a few days before Ambassador and Mrs. Chester
Bowles had stopped at the rough shelter in which he and Louise
were staying during the days of the camp. As Victor went to greet
her, she smilingly introduced him to a hill woman, a Tibetan
refugee who was holding the hand of a young girl.

"See, Doctor," she said. "My husband and I have brought you a
patient." She explained further. "We were driving up to the town
of Manali, and just before we arrived we saw this blind woman
beside the road, being led by this little girl. Of course we could not
speak the language, and we did not stop, but our driver went back
and talked with her and asked how long she had been blind. We
knew you were holding this camp nearby, so we went back and
picked her up and brought her here. I do hope you can help her."

Victor could. The woman had operable cataracts, and he re¬
moved them. She was able to see. This was only one of the
instances when Mrs. Bowles participated in the work of medical
missions in India. In a clinic conducted by a church group in a
village near Delhi, she was often seen helping with the greeting of
patients, the giving out of medicines, serving in every way possi¬
ble, often wearing the Punjabi style of dress, full trousers tapering
to the ankles and long overblouse.

Later she would express her impressions of the meetings with
her new American friends, the Rambos.

"Dr. Rambo? He was so enthusiastic! First compassionate, then
terribly enthusiastic. He has a positive way of thinking that things
can be better, and when it happens, as with the woman we brought
to him, he is overjoyed. I think he was rather impressed that my
husband, the ambassador, had also some compassion and had
brought the woman to him. When we were leaving he hung on to
us and thanked us, and then he prayed for us. I will never forget it.
He looked up at the sky and asked God's blessing on the great
American ambassador and his wonderful wife! How humble it
made us feel!"

Victor never missed an opportunity to meet government leaders,
especially Americans, and stress the importance of his work, as
when Vice President Hubert Humphrey came to Ludhiana to visit
the Agricultural University. Always he attempted to challenge
with a vision of what the millions spent in foreign aid, often used

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

211

unwisely and ill received, in his opinion, might accomplish if he
had his way.

"We met in Ludhiana," he wrote the vice president soon after. "I
told you of the impact that a service like Christ's healing, giving
sight to the blind, would make on the donors and on those given
to. I told you of five million persons blind with operable cataract in
the villages of India who will never see unless they have the
removal of their cataracts. I hastily gave a plan to do a hundred
thousand more operations a year through a hundred eye institu¬
tions already functioning but hopelessly understaffed for the job
and having no transportation nor instrumentation. This is a job
worthy of a great nation. . . . Let's use the intelligence we have and
do something against which there is no possibility of misunder¬
standing or objection. . . . May I see you the latter part of June or
the first week of July, please? It might mean a new day for a million
people."

"A hundred thousand . . . millions." Victor's versions were
always depicted with a big, splashing brush on a giant canvas.

The air travel between India and America gave him opportuni¬
ties for many profitable stopovers in England, Scotland, Switzer¬
land, Holland, and Germany. One loyal supporter of the eye
camps was the Christoffel Blindenmission in Bensheim, Germany,
founded by Ernest J. Christoffel, called "father to the blind of the
Orient." Started as a mission to the blind of Iran where Christoffel
had been a missionary, it now ministered to the handicapped in
over forty countries, and Victor's projects were among its bene¬
ficiaries. While visiting Bensheim on one of his trips, Victor had a
strong desire to interview a certain eminent ophthalmologist. Pro¬
fessor Doden, in Frankfurt.

"Would it be possible?" he asked Herr Stein, director of overseas
operations.

"I'm afraid not without an appointment. He's a very important
person."

"Well," said Victor with his usual optimism, "Let's try it. I have a
feeling," he added with a smile, "that God may already have made
an appointment for us."

Arriving at the professor's office, they found the great man at
liberty and willing to receive them. "Were you expecting me?"
asked Victor.

"Of course not." The professor looked surprised. "I had no idea
you were coming."

"And I wasn't expecting to come," replied Victor, "But since we
have now met, God must have arranged it." They had a cordial
conversation during which Victor was able to give an eloquent

212

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

description of his work in India. Then he was invited into the
professor's clinic. Inside the door he stopped, speechless, gazing
at the wealth of beautiful ophthalmologic equipment spread all
about. "What is it? Is anything the matter?" asked the professor,
surprised by the look of pained absorption on his guest's face.

"It's just seeing all this beautiful equipment," confessed Victor,
"and thinking of its being used for a few people in Frankfurt
whereas millions of blind in India have to do without it."

The professor, who had been much moved by Victor's story, said
in a remarkable fit of generosity, "I understand. Take what you
want of it."

To the intense embarrassment of Herr Stein, Victor proceeded to
do just that. Before he finished he had collected several large boxes
of valuable equipment that would be a godsend to one or more of
his stations in India. Smiling, giving no indication of worry, the
professor stood, watching.

The boxes were unloaded at Victor's room at the mission guest
house. The next morning he could be seen jigging on the sidewalk
outside the house, collecting a bevy of delighted children. Al¬
though he could not speak German, there seemed to be perfect
understanding between them. Soon all disappeared. Tracing them
to Victor's room, Herr Stein found the children busily wrapping all
the eye instruments carefully in toilet paper, rolls of which they
had collected from here, there, and everywhere.

The next day he was driving Victor with his baggage, including
the extra boxes, once more to Frankfurt to take the plane to India,
and they were both worrying about the excess luggage. Would the
2,000 deutschemarks that Victor had with him be enough to pay
for it?

"Brother, let's have a word of prayer," said Victor as they started
off, "but don't you close your eyes. Remember, you're driving."

At the airport Victor sauntered off toward the Air India counter,
leaving Herr Stein to follow with the baggage. Curiously enough,
he soon met a steward from the Indian airline, a German, who
looked familiar. "Hello, brother," he greeted. "Do you know me?"

Astonishingly the man said, "Yes, I know you. You are the eye
surgeon from the Punjab."

"It's a nice day, isn't it? Victor continued.

"Yes, sir, it's a fine day."

"Did you have a good breakfast?"

"Sure. A fine one."

"And did you thank God for it?"

Nonplussed, the steward made no reply. "Then let's thank Him
for it, brother," Victor said.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

213

Arriving with the cart piled high with luggage, Herr Stein was
dumfounded to see Victor kneeling in front of a long, impatient
queue of passengers waiting to be cleared in this busiest airport in
Europe, the steward meanwhile standing, eyes wide open, franti¬
cally gesticulating to the agent at the counter to clear the baggage
without weighing it. By the time Victor had finished the prayer, his
baggage had been cleared and no money had been charged. Bid¬
ding the secretary a cheery good-bye, off he went.

Still embarrassed about the professor, Herr Stein called him the
next morning and offered to compensate him in some way for the
equipment taken away by Dr. Rambo. To his surprise Professor
Doden laughed goodnaturedly, then replied with the utmost ear¬
nestness, “Those instruments are going to have the best use they
ever had. If Dr. Rambo ever comes to Germany again, please bring
him back to my clinic/'

This was by no means the only instance of Victor's happy
encounters with the world's transportation systems. In 1962 Dr.
Edward Van Eck, in the microbiology department at Vellore, had a
retinal detachment. Vellore was not having retinal detachments
after surgery, so that field had not been developed. Victor decided
that Ed must be flown to Amsterdam for care by Professor A.
Hagedoorn, an ophthalmologist there, so he flew with him minus
a visa, “talking" his way there and back.

Once, in London, Victor was traveling by taxi from the airport to
the home of young Victor Choudhrie and his wife. (While studying
in London, the young doctor had dropped the “a" from his name,
making it easier to pronounce.) Victor talked to the driver so
impressively about his work that on reaching the destination the
driver refused to take any money from him. In fact, the next day he
came back to deliver Victor to the airport free of charge.

Was there egotism in Victor? Yes. But it was balanced by a keen
sense of self-identification with the cause that was his obsession
and by a complete disregard for other people's opinions. He cared
little for appearance.

Once, Dr. Choudhrie remembered, he came from America to
Vellore after a short furlough, carrying just one suitcase. When he
opened it, it was full of eye instruments. Tucked underneath was
only one pair of cotton trousers, with a shirt. After a shower he
came out dressed in this outfit, the pants at least three inches above
his ankles. By mistake, the only pair of trousers he had brought
from the States belonged to his son Tom, then a mere stripling.
Victor wore them without concern.

When in Chicago he usually stopped in the home of Pastor C. G.
Kindred, for many years pastor of the Englewood Christian

214

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Church. Nancy Berg, Kindred's secretary, became not only Victor's
secretary as well but also his valet and maid. When she was not
holding a dictation book and pencil all the time he was there, she
was unpacking his big old suitcase, hurrying the dirty clothes
downstairs to the washer and getting them on the line, preparing a
meal for him, and typing his letters.

One day when he had to catch a train immediately, Nancy failed
to get the top belt of his trousers dry; but with Kindred's blessing,
away they went down Lake Shore Drive, with Victor holding his
trousers outside the car window to the breeze, getting the full¬
blown wind to dry them enough to put in his suitcase, and as usual
thinking of people they had been discussing who were in need of
prayer.

"Nancy," he would say, "slow up. We must pray for him."
Obediently she would pull off to the side and bow her head while
the pants, hanging limply, postponed their battle with the breeze
and Victor petitioned the Almighty. They made the train, and the
pants, sufficiently dry, went into the suitcase.

"You should explain," protested Victor, hearing her relate the
incident, "that I did have another pair of pants to wear. But what a
ride! You and Brother Kindred always send me off on my way with
Christian hilarity!"

But always it was the months in India, work concentrated largely
in the villages, for which all other activity was merely preparation,
marking time. "Magnificent cheer in living, pure joy," Victor wrote
to friends in 1964. "We did eleven eye service camps in villages in
1963 and turned down eleven invitations." By this time he himself
during his nearly forty years of service had restored sight to over
forty thousand people in ten thousand villages. Still, he felt, his
work was barely begun. Always his horizons widened.

Ever since his first eye camp in the beautiful Kulu Valley, he had
dreamed of going over the Rohtang Pass, 13,400 feet high, beyond
Manali, to work in the sparsely populated high valleys of the
frontier province of Lahaul and Spiti. Plans were made in June
1965. Although Victor himself was not able to go, Dr. Arin Chatter-
jee took a survey group there in July, and the rest of the team
followed in August. Dr. Simon Franken of Holland, a professor in
the Christian Medical College eye department, went with them as
surgeon. The project was assisted by a grant from the United States
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and was to feature
research as well as service, making a survey of eye conditions and
the causes of blindness in those high mountain areas.

It was region never before visited by a mobile eye hospital
research team. Hazards of travel were stupendous—nonexistent

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

215

roads, uncooperative pack mules that dropped loads over cliffs,
bad weather, failure of promised transport to reach distant villages,
and the necessity of sleeping on cold, wet floors, surrounded by
centipedes. Arin proved his mettle by meeting every emergency
with skill and courage. When the Lahauli boy hired to help with
the chores around camp refused to carry water because he was
educated and thought such labor beneath him, Arin persuaded
him by carrying half of it himself.

They found a striking contrast between the Lahaul Valley, av¬
eraging ten thousand feet above sea level, and the Kulu Valley,
where many of the eye camps were held. Kulu was green with
pine-clad mountains, whereas Lahaul was barren and rocky, with
huge, graceful, snow-clad peaks standing against a turquoise sky.
Most of the villages surveyed were on steep slopes approachable
only by footpaths. The team visited eighty-eight villages, giving
eye examinations to nearly five hundred persons, finding the
percentage of defective vision very high but in most cases curable.
Many blind people had their vision restored. The area offered a
wonderful opportunity for visits by mobile units, if only the money
and staff could be provided.

This was the beginning of regular camps in this remote area,
resulting in many dramatic experiences. For instance, there was
the Buddhist lama named Chhawang, who lived in a gompa
(monastery) in this mountain district. For four years he had been
blind.

"There is a team of doctors," his friend Dorji, a young lama, told
him eagerly, "Who are working in Rangrick in the Spiti Valley.
There are making the blind to see. Let us go to them, master."

But by the time the lama reached Rangrick in late August, Arin
and his team, fearing that storms would cut off their return to the
plains, had left. For three and a half years the lama waited, hoping
that another summer would bring the eye surgeon and his team to
Spiti. At last he decided that he must act. Dorji, who could speak
Hindi and had traveled outside of Spiti, would go with him. If the
doctor could not come to Rangrick, they must go to him. Money for
expenses was collected, alms given by friends and relatives, and a
donation came from the gompa. It was March when snows had
begun to melt, the time to go. Later the hot weather in the Punjab
plains would be unbearable for mountain people.

It took four days for them to reach Sumbo, about forty kilometers
through the mountains. Lama Chhawang rode whatever animal
was available—yak, dzo, mule, pony — led by Dorji from village to
village. From Sumdo they traveled four more days in the noisy,
crowded, uncomfortable buses that bumped over rough roads and

216

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

reeked of tobacco smoke and diesel fumes. At last they came to
Ludhiana.

All along the way, people had suggested that they might find an
eye doctor in a nearer place, Simla or Chandigarh, but no. They
trusted only the doctor from Ludhiana who had cared enough to
come and help the people of Spiti. His patients there had told them
that he was not only skillful but also kind and loving.

From the bus terminal in Ludhiana, a four-kilometer ride in a
rickshaw brought them at last to the Christian Hospital. Crowds
filled the entrance. How could they find their doctor among so
many? But a friendly attendant guided them to the eye depart¬
ment. Suddenly they heard a word of greeting in their own Bhuti
language, and Dorji saw a man in a white coat coming to meet them
with a warm smile of welcome. It was Dr. Chatterjee himself. The
taking of the case history was lengthy, for it meant translation from
Bhuti to Hindi and back to Bhuti and included news of the Spiti
Valley and greetings to the doctor from his former patients; but
finally the lama was admitted to the ward and Dorji was given a
place in the relatives' quarters where he could prepare food for
both his patient and himself. The travelers soon felt at home even
in this strange place, and they liked to hear the hymns sung every
morning by the nurses, although they could not understand the
words of these or of the prayers offered before surgery.

Both of Lama Chhawang's cataracts were operated on success¬
fully. The healing was complete and two pairs of glasses were
given, one for distance, one for reading. The doctor took out a
schoolbook that he had brought from Spiti, and Lama Chhawang
found to his delight that he could read again. He would be able to
see the mountains, the footpaths, the food in his bowl, and the
faces of his friends and pupils.

At the hospital gate, under the flaming blossoms of the gol mohr
trees, the lamas said good-bye to their doctor and started back over
the same long, rough road, taking with them a portion of the
gospel in the Bhuti language, the joy of the Christian friendship
they had found, and, of course, two eyes with sight restored.

Certainly Victor had spread his web of influence far afield,
stretching around the world. On their way back to India in 1965, he
and Louise visited the Bulape Hospital in central Zaire, where
Birch had gone the previous year as a medical missionary. After
taking his academic surgical residency at the University of Penn¬
sylvania, Birch had planned to return to India to teach surgery; but
there had been health problems, and he and Peggy had spent six
years in Appalachia. Now, under the Southern Presbyterian Board
he was in a small bush hospital, serving in an area that had only

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

217

one physician for every twenty thousand people. During the ten
days of his visit, Victor gave his son a rush course in ophthalmol¬
ogy, teaching him techniques of glaucoma and cataract operations
so that he was able to perform such surgery successfully. After¬
ward Birch said, "Tve had two weeks residency in ophthalmology
with my father!"

In Zaire, Victor discovered, there were only four eye surgeons
for fourteen million people. One woman walked with her blind-
with-cataracts husband five hundred miles for an operation. Al¬
though he had hoped Birch would specialize in ophthalmology
and, of course, come to India, Victor derived much satisfaction
from this brief partnership. Thereafter the work in Zaire became
one of the Rambo Committee projects.

Ophthalmologic specialists from many countries continued to
minister for varying periods in all three of the India missions.
There was Dr. A. Lawrence Samuels of New Jersey, who had lived
with the Rambos for three months in 1955 and who wrote with
appreciation: "They treated all people as fellow human beings.
They are religious without being sanctimonious. All the doctors,
nurses, technical helpers were Indians. This is 'operation boot¬
strap,' helping people to help themselves."

Victor had visited in the Samuels' home in Plainfield, New Jersey
and they had met in Brussels at the International Congress of the
Ophthalmology Society; again in New Delhi, where Victor and an
All India Ophthalmological members group had persuaded the
council to meet in 1962.

"I'll never forget that meeting," reported Dr. Samuels. "Indians
went all out to make this a wonderful Congress. Nehru was pre¬
sent. Dr. Radhakrishnan, the President of India, opened it. Victor
was very much in evidence."

Now Dr. Samuels came again to India in 1967 and gave a course
on eye pathology to the staff and students of Ludhiana, staying
with the Rambos in their cottage in Model Town. "I especially
enjoyed their cuisine prepared by their old cook from Mungeli,
Khushman. While there I attended the marriage of Khushman's
daughter Ruth, a trained nurse, to a senior medical student. Dr.
Rambo took me on a trip to Simla to arrange for sites for eye camps
for the coming summer. It was like a voyage to Shangri-la. The
activity of this man already well past seventy was abounding. He
never seems to age."

There were Dr. Bauman from Switzerland, who assisted in four
camps in 1961, and Dr. Rudolph Bock of Palo Alto, California, who
worked with the team that same year and whose visit gave a
tremendous boost to the eye department and students. It was good

218

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

to have his cheery companionship as they huddled around the
fireplace in Ludhiana, trying to keep warm during those chilly
days of the Punjab winter. There were Dr. Lester T. Jones of
Portland, Oregon, Dr. Robert Andrew of Detroit, Michigan, and
Dr. Marius Augustin of Bern, Switzerland. Dr. Christopher Deen
from Mungeli and Dr. Anna Thomas from Vellore also came to
Ludhiana to lend their services.

People from many countries came to visit as well as to assist in
the eye camps, and always they went away marveling.

"We saw a long double row of tents," reported Charles Rey¬
nolds, the American secretary for Ludhiana on a visit to a camp in
the little village of Dhamote, "in front of what was obviously a
village school. As we pulled up in front of the building a tall
angular figure dressed in a short, high-buttoned doctor's jacket
bounded out of the doorway.

" 'Welcome to you, one and all,' he cried. 'You are just in time to
see us start the cataract operations.' He threw his arm affection¬
ately around the shoulder of our driver and said, 'Tony, did you
bring the streptomycin? Wonderful stuff that! Lord, we thank You
for streptomycin and all the other wonder-drugs that do so much
for the healing of man. We thank You for bringing these friends
safely. Now may they see and understand the true importance of
the work among the blind. OK everybody! Let's get to work!' "

By the time Reynolds and his party had recovered from this
introduction to Victor Rambo, the team was busy preparing pa¬
tients, one with shaving soap and razor; another swabbing an
antiseptic on the operation area; another measuring eye tension
with a tonometer.

"Come on now, everybody," Victor ordered, "put on a mask,
cap, and gown. We don't want to run the risk of infection, and
please leave your shoes outside. Only slippers here, please."

Fascinated, the visitors watched the team operate at three tables
in perfect coordination, Victor performing surgery at one table,
then leaving the suturing and dressing to a young assistant and
moving to a second table. Arin Chatterjee operated at a third table
alone. Nurses held flashlights while the doctors unerringly guided
their scalpels, for the electricity was inadequate and uncertain. On
a stand beside the large table containing instruments, a pressure
stove was boiling a dish of distilled water, sterilizing instruments
as needed. They saw the patients removed on stretchers, passing a
table at which Louise sat, inscribing each one's record on a card;
saw the tents converted into hospital wards, each one holding
six to eight cots and each patient provided with warm blankets

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

219

and having a relative or friend to care for him; saw and marveled.

Almost as vigorous in activity as Victor himself was another
member of the team, a young Indian, Jagir Masih. Officially the
driver and organizer, the "teller of good news," announcing, ar¬
ranging locations and facilities, his duties seemed boundless. He
greeted new patients and relatives. He helped to settle disputes.
His knowledge of many languages —not only Hindi, Urdu, Pun¬
jabi, and English but also many dialects—seemed sufficient for
him to communicate with all. He had served in the Indian army
during World War II and had had wide experience. Although not
trained in medicine, he had an uncanny instinct for correct diag¬
nosis and could anticipate every move of the surgeons, help the
optician on the team to fit glasses, and, perhaps most important of
all, act as a buffer between his chief and all the demands constantly
being made upon him. "Dr. Rambo is a good man," he insisted,
"but people do try sometimes to take advantage of him. We must
protect him and save his strength for the wonderful work he is
doing."

But they could not protect him from all crises diverting him from
his main purpose, to bring sight to human beings, and perhaps it
was well they could not. There w^as one experience in the towm of
Raipur-Majri, about forty miles from Ludhiana, that, although it
was certainly a diversion, Victor nevertheless wx>uld not have
missed for the world.

Raipur-Majri was a rural welfare center set in the midst of fields
of sugar cane, cotton, wheat, com, and mustard. Built by a retired
Indian, Nagendar Singh, as his lifelong project for the welfare of
his neighbors, the center included a school, a rural dispensary and
matemitv clinic, a veterinary dispensary, a Sikh temple, a coopera¬
tive storehouse, and a combined library and rest house in w’hich
most of the team members slept and ate. While there they had
some of the coldest weather of winter, with the predawn tempera¬
ture dowm to freezing on several days.

They were holding their dispensary in the school building when
a local farmer came down the road, leading his camel. Stopping by
the school, he inquired for the "Doctor Sahib."

"You are an eye doctor," he said when Victor appeared. "You
take care of eye troubles. My camel has trouble with his eye.
Please, Sahib, you fix it."

Victor lowered his gaze from the haughty countenance of the
beast to the pleading face of the farmer. "I— Y m sorry, brother. You
see. I'm not a veterinarian. I take care of people's eyes, not ani¬
mals."

220

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

The farmer was stubborn. "You fix a man's eye, so you can fix my
camel's eye. He is my friend, one of my family. I need him. Sahib.
You must help him."

Victor understood. The farmer depended on the beast for his
very life. He had cured an elephant once, had he not? Why not a
camel? The team went to work, Victor tying down the camel. Local
anesthesia; surgery on the injured member; dressing; a beautiful
bandage; it was an operation as careful and sanitary as if they had
been operating on a human being. And to the grateful farmer and
doubtless to the arrogant beast looking down his nose at his bene¬
factor, it was just as important.

As all through his life, Victor's associates here in Ludhiana
stored up personal details and anecdotes of Victor to be remem¬
bered and related: how when he scrubbed for surgery he would lift
his soap-lathered hands and give them a greeting, "How do you
do? Ready to go to work this morning?"; how once at a rather
gloomy eye camp he put on different colored shoes and called
attention to them, "Look, I bought me a new pair of shoes!"; how
over and over he would perform a joyful jig that made the patients
laugh and forget their troubles.

There was the Christmas service in 1967 in Christ Church,
Ludhiana, that Dr. Mookerjee, one of the staff, would always
remember. The congregation had assembled outside the church
around a gaily decorated Christmas tree, the children bursting
with excitement, when suddenly behind the bushes they heard a
rousing song, "Happy birthday to You, Jesus, happy birthday to
You!" And out of the bushes sprang Father Christmas in all his
regalia, complete with tinkling bells. He assured the children as he
handed out gifts that his reindeers were tied outside, because he
was afraid they might chew up the lovely garden. He did a vigor¬
ous tap dance, and all agreed that never had there been a gayer or
more vigorous Father Christmas. Who was it? While the children
were busy with their presents, he tugged off his beard, and, of
course, there was Dr. Rambo.

There was no dearth of remembered incidents featuring his
habits of continual and conspicuous prayer. There was the time on
a camp at Manali when the camp peon Johnson, a chain smoker,
fell ill. Victor was much worried, and he instructed Jagir Masih to
take Mr. Johnson to the hospital early the next morning. That night
when all the camp was asleep, Victor went to the peon's tent to
check on his condition. He found it full of cigarette smoke. Embar¬
rassed, Johnson tried to hide the cigarette, for Victor had often
berated him for his habit. Victor seemed to take no notice, but
merely knelt down and started to pray with fervor, "O Lord, give

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

221

Johnson enough strength so that he may overcome the temptation
to smoke. Lord, this has been his long battle, and please help him
win it." He went quietly back to his tent and to sleep.

When he opened his eyes the next morning, he was surprised to
see Johnson sitting near his feet, his face wet with tears. "Doctor-
ji," he said, "the rest of the night after you left I couldn't sleep. I
expected you to scold me for smoking against medical advice
because of my lung condition. And all you did was pray for me.
Never again shall I touch a cigarette, and thank you for your help."

"Don't thank me," replied Victor. "Bolo Yisu Masih ki jai /" (Vic¬
tory to Jesus).

Once he was called to go to a village where a man was bringing
his mother, who was in urgent need of surgery. Hastily Victor got
together some of his team and necessary equipment, and they
started off in a pickup truck. It was the monsoon season, and the
roads were very muddy. After some distance a tire went down.
They pumped it up, for there was no spare. A couple of miles
farther it went down again. More pumping. Again it happened,
and again. Finally they were able to go only a quarter of a mile
before the leaking tire once more collapsed, this time seemingly for
good. They sat for a while, hoping some car would pass. None did.

"Oh, my goodness," Victor suddenly exclaimed, "human be¬
ings are so foolish! Here we have help at our fingertips, and we are
not using it." He knelt in the mud and started praying. "Lord, this
woman is coming on the back of her son to have her eye operated
on. And if we don't get there before dark, we will have no light to
see by. Please get us there somehow." Getting up, he repeated,
"Human beings are so stupid!" They waited a while longer. Still no
help came. " Achchha!" said Victor at last. "Blow up the tire again,
boys."

They did so, and it took them all the way to the village, and,
arriving there, immediately became flat again.

"Prayer!" scoffed one of the team. "Where was that Lord of
yours? He didn't bring us any help."

"No?" Victor said with a chuckle. "I didn't ask Him to bring
somebody. I just asked Him to get us here. He did."

Victor was delighted when in 1968 his old friend and supporter of
half a century, Wistar Wood, came to visit an eye camp with his
wife, Evelyn, and two young granddaughters. On arriving in
Delhi, they boarded a small, shaky plane and headed north toward
the Himalayas. Putting down in the airstrip of the beautiful Kulu
Valley just south of Kulutown, they were given a joyous welcome
by Victor and Louise and driven in the camp van over rough roads
to the eye camp.

222

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

The Rambos were living in a small hut and had set up the
operating room in a corrugated iron storehouse without electricity.
Wistar and his family took turns holding flashlights on the eyes of
the patients while Victor operated. It was a fitting climax, thought
Wistar, to a relationship begun over fifty years before in that ship¬
yard on the Delaware when Victor had worked as a carpenter and
he as a machinist's helper, when Victor had urged him to pray over
some youthful problem, establishing a bond between them that
had endured for a lifetime.

"Greetings!" Victor began his letter to the Rambo Committee in
September 1968. "Our work this past year has not only reached
more blind and poor-visioned people than in any previous year,
but also has involved as fine surgery as is done anywhere in the
world. Three hundred cataract operations were done without a
single iris prolapse or iris in the wound. For us who have seen
through the years one to five of these complications in a hundred,
the surgical record of our young Indian surgeons, led by Dr. Arin
Chatterjee, our full-time surgeon, is unequaled.

"One man," the letter continued, "was so thrilled to see after
three years of blindness that he looked at me, threw his arms
around me and gave me a hug that cracked a rib! Not serious,
however. I will remember as long as I live his face full of unspeak¬
able joy, his heart full of appreciation. I pass this joy and apprecia¬
tion on to you, without breaking a rib, multipled by over ten
thousand times, the number of people the five teams have served
surgically this last year. And more than 50,000 patients were seen
in the clinics!"

That year, 1968, was also a red letter one for the Rambo family.
Birch, Peggy, and their three children were flying back to Zaire that
September. Tom had received his Ph.D. in biology from Ohio State
and married Elinor Emery on Victor's seventy-fourth birthday,
July 6. And Victor and Louise themselves were returning to India
that fall via other developing countries, to study their village eye
diseases and treatment facilities and start another winter of work.

The unusual and noteworthy visitors to the eye camps during
those later years of the sixties were by no means all Westerners. At
least one was an Indian.

Sobha Singh was one of India's best-known and best-loved
artists, not only a painter and sculptor but also a philosopher
deeply concerned for the welfare of his country's people. His home
was in the village of Andretta in the beautiful Kangra Valley of the
lower Himalayas. A peasant who lived a short distance from his
house and from whom he had bought his land had become blind.
He would come to visit Sobha Singh with a probing stick in one

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

223

hand and a small girl leading him by the other. One day Sobha
Singh was amazed to see him coming all by himself, holding a stick
but with no one to guide him. Bubbling with pride and self-
confidence, the peasant greeted his neighbor with a smile.

"You can see!" exclaimed the artist.

"Yes," the peasant said triumphantly, "by the grace of our Lord
Rama and the kindness of Ram Sahib."

Squatting on the verandah, he told his story. A neighbor who
was blind had regained his sight after an eye operation at Palam-
pur. Encouraged, the peasant also had gone there, hopeful but
with terrible fears of the unknown. The Ram Sahib had taken his
knife. He had taken away the blindness. "And now, blessed be
Rama, I can see!"

Sobha Singh listened with rapt interest. 1 must meet this angel of a
man , he told himself.

As usual, the team from Ludhiana went to Palampur the next
year and set up the eye camp in the mission compound. With his
daughter and son-in-law, Sobha Singh traveled the nine miles and
stood at a respectful distance, watching. He saw that the poorest of
the poor were there, the most wretched of the wretched, and he
watched the tall, white-garbed Westerner go from one to the other,
treating them all alike. Patients were waiting their turns for opera¬
tions on the verandah. Placing an affectionate hand on their shoul¬
ders, the "Ram Sahib" was instilling confidence in them.

"He looked like a saint," Sobha Singh remembered afterward.
"Busy with his work, he chanced to look at me as I stood there, a
tall slender figure with my flowing white beard and my light, fawn
colored shawl wrapped around my body. He came and offered me
his hand. With a bow of courtesy I reverently clasped it in both of
mine and shook it with fervor. The magic hand this was of the Ram
Sahib who restored vision to the innumerable.

"Most welcome, sir,' he said with smiling eyes. 'Why have you
come?'

" 'No eye trouble, sir,' I said. 'I have come to pay my regards to
the great surgeon who is imbued with the mission of giving the gift
of sight to the miserable blind.'

"He put his delightful hand on my right shoulder. 'Ah, most
welcome, most welcome. Come along.' He led us to his abode. His
wife greeted us with unbounded affection and a homely smile.
When I introduced my daughter Gurcharan, she embraced her
with motherly love. We talked together over a cup of tea. He
introduced us to the members of his team.

"Religion is one of my major interests. Alas! Mechanization of
the world has smothered and blurred its meanings. Still, the fact

224

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

remains that I have no words to express what I experienced that
day. I felt that in the big hall full of patients with bandages on their
eyes the glory of the Lord himself was manifest there. To my mind,
that of an artist, came the image of the Lord of the poorest of the
poor, gliding gracefully through the diseased and destitute—
blessing and curing them. On leaving the eye camp I remained
absorbed in silent contemplation all the way back to my village/'

The next year Victor went again with the team to Palampur, and
Sobha Singh's daughter visited him. "My father requests you to
come to his studio. Doctor Sahib. He wishes so much to paint your
picture."

Victor was astonished. But of course he could not disappoint this
remarkable Indian who had become his friend. Transportation was
a problem. There was the hospital van, but that was only for public
use. "Could we go on the bus," he asked the girl, "stay overnight
at your place, and return in the morning?"

"Yes, of course. You will be most welcome."

No, Victor decided, that would not do. It might put his friends to
inconvenience. In the end he took the hospital van and appeased
his conscience by waving and calling out to everybody he saw
along the way, "Anybody to Andretta? Free lift. No charge."

When his daughter told him about the trip, Sobha Singh was
deeply moved. "You are most justified in coming by this van," he
said, "because you and your team have rendered great service to
the people of this area by curing the blind, and my portrait of you
will be a humble present from the grateful public."

"There and then," the artist wrote later, "the Doctor Sahib went
down on his knees and implored, 'It is God who cures, not me. I
am His humble servant. He is my shepherd. Gratitude is due to
Him, not to me!' I perceived my studio pervaded by a celestial
glow. I felt myself in a sort of trance.

"My daughter served coffee. Meanwhile, in an abandonment of
inner peace, my ecstatic brush gave a few intoxicated touches to
the portrait I knew I must make. The Rambos left soon after. Their
hearts were with their patients in the eye camp. This was my very
strange spiritual experience. It enabled me to peep into the
enchanting depths of a missionary. Dr. Rambo lived a life of renun¬
ciation. After Palampur he used to organize an eye camp a few
kilometers away at Raison. Once I met him there. I found him in a
servant quarter. He was sitting on the edge of a shabby, string-
woven cot. One has to suffer to allay the sufferings of others. Such
has been Dr. Rambo, over here, among us."

The portrait that Sobha Singh painted of Victor, now hanging

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

225

Sobha Singh , renowned
Indian artist, at work on
his portrait of Victor.

in the eye department of the Pennsylvania Hospital, the oldest
hospital in America, was the physical expression of this extrav¬
agant admiration and their long friendship, as well as the work of a
great artist. But of even greater interest is a picture taken of the
artist as he painted the portrait, sitting on a stool at his easel, white
robed, with long white hair and a snowy beard, and a noble profile
that could well have distinguished an Old Testament prophet; and
in the background on the easel the neat, well-groomed figure of the
American doctor, eyes keen and gleaming with some secret mirth,
lips ready to break into a smile. The photograph shows a contrast
between two cultures, two religions, and two ways of life, yet it
expresses deep mutual ideals and aspirations, belying that old
adage of Kipling, “East is east and west is west, but never, ..." for
given a love of God and a concern for human need, always the
twain shall meet.

12

I n 1969 Victor was seventy-five years old. Although he performed
less surgery in the next five years, leaving much of the operat¬
ing to Arin Chatterjee and other doctors, his activity never les¬
sened. He continued to spend two or three months at Wyck each
summer, returning to Ludhiana for the fall and winter rigorous
schedule in the eye camps, with numerous side trips for confer¬
ences, seminars, and speaking engagements, not only in India and
America but also in other parts of the world.

The eye camps flourished. In the last three months of 1969, five
thousand patients were examined, more than seven hundred op¬
erations performed. The Rambo Committee had been registered in
India as "Sight For the Curable Blind" so that it might receive
increased indigenous support and undergo greater expansion.
Some patients brought special satisfaction.

There was Mr. Jamde, a middle-aged Lahauli trader. Dr. Chatter¬
jee had seen him two years before in Kyelong and advised him to
come for surgery when his cataracts were further advanced. This
year he came, with several members of his family, had one eye
operated on, and promised to return next year for the other.

There was Veer Chand, a thirteen-year-old schoolboy, who had
had one eye operated on for congenital cataract the year before.
This year he returned for the other eye. He was doing well in
school.

There was Jofi, the wife of Mani Ram, a village carpenter, who
came five days' journey over mountain trails, sometimes walking
and sometimes being carried on her husband's back, to the Kulu
clinic for treatment of corneal ulcers in both eyes, probably from
tuberculosis. Her patience and courage during the month of treat¬
ment would always be remembered.

Dr. Arin Chatterjee was studying in America that year at Univer¬
sity Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, but Victor was able to carry on
the full program with the help of Dr. Kapalmit Singh, ophthal-

226

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

227

mologist, and Dr. S.C. Julius, his assistant. The numbers of Indian
medical workers who had been assisted in training by the Rambo
Committee had long since become impressive. Dr. Raj Sukhnan-
dan, son of Dayal, and his wife were returning this year after seven
years of study in Canada and the United States. Dr. Victor Choud-
hrie and his wife, Bindu, daughter of Dayal and Lily Sukhnandan,
were also returning after years of study in the United Kingdom.
The Sukhnandans' daughter Pushpa, after graduating from
Ludhiana Medical College, was working as a house surgeon in
Padar Hospital. It was a rich harvest from the seeds Victor had
planted long ago in sending those two boys to Miraj. The year was
full of excitement and happiness for the Rambos and for Dayal, but
also of sadness, for Lily Sukhnandan died suddenly of a heart
attack in July.

"I thank God for our life together/' wrote Dayal of the bride
Victor had helped him find that day in Jabalpur. "She was a very
active worker with church women not only in India but also
abroad. She took active part in the church union negotiations."

The year brought changes to the Rambo family also. Bill, who
had stopped in Ludhiana the year before on his way home from
two months medical service in South Vietnam, was now, with his
wife, Sara, and their four children, William, Tim, Louise, and
Frank, in Charleston, South Carolina, where he was associate
professor of surgery in the Medical University of Charleston. Tom,
who had received his Ph. D. from Ohio State, and his wife, Elinor,
flew to Ethiopia in September for a two-year job at an agricultural
college. On the last lap of their journey their plane containing
seventy-one persons was hijacked to Aden by Eritrean com¬
mandos. After landing, an Ethiopian security guard among the
passengers fired several shots at one of the three armed hijackers
and wounded him. In Aden airport security guards seized the
other two. After two anxious days, Tom and Elinor were returned
to Ethiopia and the college, where Tom was to teach zoology and be
in charge of a zoo.

"The year 1969 has been thrilling," wrote Victor to his commit¬
tee, "our 45th year of sight restoration, building the name of Jesus
into vocabularies of thousands of those who had not know Him
and into very many hearts for life and light."

The teams at Vellore, Sompeta, Mungeli, and Ludhiana had
done close to fourteen thousand eye operations, with as many
refractions and glasses given. Sompeta had led the way with ten
thousand operations.

Even though Victor was nominally retired, he was still a member
of the Ludhiana Christian Medical College staff as professor

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

emeritus and remained in charge of the village teams. Salaries,
personnel, equipment, and all other expenses for the mobile hospi¬
tals were paid, as always, by the Rambo Committee. The house in
Model Town, purchased by the committee, continued to be home
in India for Victor and Louise, with Arin having a room on the
upper floor and being virtually one of the family.

The year 1970 showed more significant gains. The fifteen-
member team worked in twelve places in the Punjab and ten in the
state of Himachal. A total of 15,214 patients were examined. Nearly
2,000 eye operations were performed. Eye glasses were distributed
to 1,638. Refractions were done for 3,645. A new "disaster ambu¬
lance" unit was provided for the eye department at Vellore and a
new carryall for Ludhiana to replace a unit over twelve years old
that was constantly breaking down. But still the needs were tre¬
mendous: four slit-lamp microscopes, four more carryalls, a disas¬
ter ambulance unit for Mungeli. And these were only the barest
minium of Victor's estimated needs.

"What do you want?" he was asked in an interview with John
Frazer, a journalist long associated with India.

"I want," he replied, "to have our science of sight restoration
reach every single person with curable blindness in every needy
nation. Why not? Every needy nation is within twenty-four hours
of flying time."

"And what would you do if you had a hundred thousand dol¬
lars?"

"I would set machinery going to find out the ophthalmologic
situation in every needy nation. I would have a Rambo Committee
member go to each of the nations for a short visit. This would take
some three months. Then I would connect up a medical school eye
department in the U.S.A. with a nation that the department might
serve, fifty of them. Then I would pray for $2,500,000 to cover the
expense of equipping, travel, cost of about a hundred teams—
about 100,000 cataract operations. And how the name of God and
that of the U.S.A. would soar in the capitals of the needy nations!"

The Rambo Committee's annual budget, aiming at fifty thou¬
sand dollars, was boldly ambitious, but in Victor's mind it was a
mere drop in the bucket. His theme song in these years of the
seventies and a favorite from the moment it appeared was "The
Impossible Dream."

On their journeys to and from America in 1970, Victor and Louise
visited Tom and Elinor in Alemaya, Ethiopia, making the acquain¬
tance of Thomas Birch Rambo, their sixteenth grandchild. He
had been born in Addis Ababa on May 10 and was sometimes called,
as an Ethiopian compliment, "Ambasa," lion. They spent three

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

229

weeks there in June and July and nine days in October on the way
back to India. They saw the impressive graduation ceremony of the
agricultural college at which Emperor Haile Selassie presided. Two
former students of Victor's at Vellore, Dr. and Mrs. Irwin Samuel,
were in Addis Ababa. Dr. Irwin was a professor of pathology in the
medical college, and his wife was on the staff of the big Leprosy
Research Institute, where Dr. Paul Brand made periodic visits to
train workers in surgery and rehabilitation.

November 2, when they flew to Delhi, was an Ethiopian national
holiday, the fortieth anniversary of the emperor's coronation, with
parades and colorful ceremonies. The imperial bodyguard, in its
bright red and green uniforms, mounted on beautiful white
horses, was a gorgeous spectacle. Not only was the Rambo Com¬
mittee now aiding Birch's work in Zaire with glasses and artificial
eyes, but it was also sending hundreds of cataract glasses to the
Haile Selassie Hospital in Addis Ababa. It was impossible to realize
then that within a few years all such royal trappings, including the
emperor himself, would be banished from this ancient monarchy,
priding itself on existing continuously from the time of King
Solomon.

Another return was made to America and Wyck in 1971, this time
a little earlier than usual for Victor to attend the fiftieth reunion of
his University of Pennsylvania Medical School class. At the end of
August, after two trips to the western United States, he was
invited to go to Jerusalem for a conference on geographical oph¬
thalmology and a seminar on the prevention of blindness. Arin
Chatterjee also was there, and the two had a happy meeting. For
Victor it was a moving experience to be in the holy city where the
Master Healer had once walked and where the prophet Isaiah had
prophesied, "The eyes of the blind shall be opened."

And of his journeys out into the hills and villages he wrote: "I
have often thought with happiness of the tremendously glorious
companionship of the disciples as they bivouacked with their Lord
up and down those Palestinian hills under improvised shelter or
none. Just like our mobile eye hospital arrangements out there in
the lonesome, today!"

It was one of his first opportunities to bring his work in India to
international attention, cataract never before having been seri¬
ously studied as an important cause of curable blindness, and he
was asked to open a session on eye camps.

But they were not "eye camps," he was now insisting: "The term
has now come into disrepute. There are, sadly, many inadequately
trained, self-styled 'eye specialists' carrying on eye camps in which
the patient is not seen by the 'doctor' after operation and where

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there is no trained nurse or other proper care. It is therefore of great
importance that the modern mobile unit, with trained ophthal¬
mologist and nurses, assistants and all modern facilities, be dif¬
ferentiated from the fly-by-night camps of the quacks. We have in
India adopted the term 'Mobile Eye Hospital' to designate these
modern units. . . . Our treatment of eye conditions must be of the
quality that we ourselves would like to have for our eyes, not
inferior in any way. The rule: the Golden Rule. Care for the pa¬
tient's eyes as you would like to have your eyes cared for. Give him
the best."

In September the Rambo Committee in America was incorpo¬
rated for charitable, scientific, educational, and religious purposes,
with J. Barton Harrison, Herman P. Eberharter, Victor C. Rambo,
Phelps Todd, and Walter D. Voelker its incorporation. Harry
Tiedeck was still president of the committee. Now there were two
registered organizations, one in America and one in India.

Harry Tiedeck's service to the committee through the years had
been invaluable. Another indispensable member had been Phelps
Todd, a businessman with the concept of service central to his life.
After retiring from business at age sixty-five, he had become trea¬
surer of the Christian Association of the University of Pennsyl¬
vania, whose lively fellowship had furnished a nucleus for the
Rambo Committee. Earl Harrison, Tom Ringe, and George Parlin,
all lawyers who had acted as counsellors under Dana How, had
served as active members of the Rambo Committee until their
deaths. When the committee would be reorganized later in 1974,
Raleigh Birch would become president and Charles Schisler trea¬
surer, to be succeeded by Wilbur Jurist. Raleigh and Joanne Birch,
who had been members of the earlier committee, would continue
as leaders in the reorganized setup.

The Rambos came back in the fall of 1969 to an India on the brink
of war, Bangladesh suffering birth throes of independence, her
beleaguered refugees pouring into West Bengal. In December
Pakistan in the west began fighting with India. Cities and airfields
in the northwest were attacked. Ludhiana was but sixty miles from
the Pakistani border. In Model Town there was a nightly blackout.
Often the screaming of the air raid sirens could be heard. One of
the teams, working near the border, experienced daily visits by the
planes, and the sound of guns could be heard day and night. Once
the planes dropped six bombs, damaging the local railway station
only half a mile from the site of the mobile hospital work. Numbers
of patients dropped to an all-time low, but the teams did not leave
their stations, although at least seven of the members had homes
very near the border. Their parents, brothers, sisters, and children

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

231

were in danger every moment, but none of the members left to look
after their families.

In spite of all the difficulties that year, the Ludhiana teams
examined and treated 11,855 patients, with 1,823 operations, 1,175
of them for cataract.

"Can you count my fingers?" would come the question over and
over again, followed by the joyful answer.

"Yes, I can count them! Yes, I can count them!"

To Victor's satisfaction, more and more local Indians were be¬
coming involved in his projects. In the cotton-market town of
Muktsar, a center for 150,000 people, a prosperous landlord, hav¬
ing seen the work of the mobile hospitals, decided to build an eye
hospital for his town. He asked that the Ludhiana team staff and
run it. They agreed to do so for one year, hoping that after that it
would continue with local support. The Christoffel Blindenmis-
sion underwrote the expense for the year.

Another of Victor's dreams was also being realized, the training
of Indian nurses. Ruth Julius, daughter of Khushman, having
earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Vellore and a Master of
Science degree in nursing from Indiana University, went on the
teaching staff of the College of Nursing in Chandigarh. Also
Banarsi Dass, a male nurse with training in ophthalmologic nurs¬
ing at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital, was taking a further
course in Washington. Others of Victor's trainees were taking
positions of increased responsibility: Dr. Anna Thomas heading
the eye department at Vellore when Roy Ebenezer left for work in
Arabia; Arin Chatterjee becoming head of the department of
ophthalmology at Ludhiana. Ruth's husband. Dr. Satish Julius,
passed his final examination for the diploma in ophthalmologic
medicine and surgery at Punjab University. Dr. Vijai Ali, trained
under Dr. Christopher Deen and Victor, was being sent by the
committee for a refresher course at Columbus, Ohio. John Coapul-
lai in Sompeta and his wife, who had gone to Vellore to train in
ophthalmology, were serving tens of thousands of eye sufferers
each year, doing about twelve thousand operations annually. Their
work was promoted by the Canadian Baptists, but the Rambo
Committee was one of their supporters.

"The past year and a half," wrote Victor in August 1972, "Have
been the most encouraging and fruitful of the 48V2 years of my
medical career."

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi recognized the work with gov¬
ernment approval. The Swiss Cantons, through Government In¬
ternational Aid, gave equipment and instruments worth over ten
thousand dollars. Christoffel Blindenmission in the Orient gave an

232

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

ambulance to the second eye hospital in Muktsar. Oxfam in
England was a generous supporter. The Canadian Operation
Eyesight Universal was giving major support to Dr. Coapullai's
hospital in Sompeta. A building program was in prospect for the
Kulu Valley clinic—wards with toilets, running water, and small
cooking cubicles in which families could cook their own meals in
the center of the mobile hospitals; staff quarters that doctors and
nurses could live in in reasonable comfort. The teams were regu¬
larly visiting twelve outreach stations.

And in the Ludhiana hospital itself, the eye department had
grown tremendously under the leadership of Dr. Simon Franken
from the Netherlands in its teaching program and graduate re¬
search. Most modern appliances had been introduced, such as the
laser photocoagulator, the only one of its kind in the area, a gift of
SIMAVI of Holland. A contact lens and artificial eye section had
also been introduced. Before this patients had had to go all the way
to Delhi or Aligarh to get contact lens fittings and supplies. Miss
Van der Ham of Holland had devoted some years to the artificial
eye section and to training opticians.

Some clinics held by the teams were outstanding. One in Gur-
daspur, north of Amritsar, through the efforts of the local Rotary
Club, had secured excellent quarters in the clean, modern build¬
ings of the Industrial Training Institute. Large tents were set up on
the campus to provide wards. College students volunteered for
service. Another team worked in small buildings connected with a
gurdwara (Sikh temple) in the small town of Sultanpur Lodhi,
considered sacred by the Sikhs because 500 years before Guru
Nanak had lived there. Visiting the clinic, Victor watched hordes of
pilgrims come to pray, some eating lunch and some resting under a
huge old banyan tree. He saw the crowd as a wonderful opportu¬
nity for eye examinations, of course.

"Can you see my hand?"

"Yes, I can see your hand and your face and everything!"

That year Victor received the Ehrenzeller Award which was
given by the ex-Residents Association of the Pennsylvania Hospi¬
tal. He was honored with a certificate for his forty-eight years of
distinguished service. On it were inscribed the familiar words of
the good Samaritan: "Take care of him, and when I come again I
will repay you."

"Actually it is you and other supporters who deserve the
award," wrote Victor to the committee. "Although I have given my
whole life to curing blindness I have been repaid daily.

"For many, many times / have held the trembling hands of the
blind as they groped their way to our Mobile Hospitals.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

233

“l have looked into the desperate pleading eyes of a mother or
father as they brought us their beloved blind child.

"And 1 have seen the unspeakable joy in the faces of those who
after their operation can see again.

"Many times I have tried to stop them as they stooped to touch
my feet."

His work had indeed been satisfying, but still a mere drop in the
ocean of need. Only some twenty thousand blind were being made
to see each year when there were a million who were groping and
sightless; and 70 percent of them could have their sight restored.
And there was also desperate need of research on the incidence of
cataract in India, the most common cause of blindness. For in¬
stance, why did the southeast Asian people, who protected their
eyes with a straw hat from childhood to death, have fewer cataracts
than the Indian peasant, exposing his eyes, unprotected, to the
glaring rays of the tropical sun? An answer would benefit the entire
world.

The "Rambling Rambos," someone called them, and the name
applied not only to Victor and Louise but also to the whole family.
Bill and Sara with their four children were in Kampala, Uganda, for
a year, where Bill was an exchange professor in surgery and cancer
research. Meanwhile Birch and Peggy, on furlough from Zaire,
were occupying Bill's house in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. The
Hoshikos with their three moved back to Cleveland after Tom's
sabbatical year of research in Chicago. Elinor and Tom, with two-
year-old Birch, moved to Kentucky, where Tom was teaching zool¬
ogy in the state College; they were soon to welcome Elizabeth
Ruth, the seventeenth grandchild. Only Helen and Wesley Walters
were not moving, ministering to the same church in Marissa,
Illinois.

The year 1973 was a landmark. "Dear friends of Victor and
Louise Rambo," wrote Harry Tiedeck, still the faithful president of
the Rambo Committee, Inc., in a letter to its hundreds of members,
"Victor and Louise return this summer from their 50th year of
service to the people of India. This is also the year that they will
celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary. We must celebrate
together, family and friends and colleagues."

And celebrate they did. Raleigh and Joanne Birch were the
impresarios of the main event. After spending years hunting parts
for the perennially ailing vans of the mobile dispensaries, Raleigh
was exercising his engineering talents in even more vital areas. As
older members of the Rambo Committee were passing on or be¬
coming incapacitated, he and Joanne were moving naturally

234

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

into positions of leadership. Now they planned a reception for
Victor and Louise at their Marple Christian Church in Broomall,
with many social features at their country home in Media. Plans
began months in advance. Sunday, August 19, was chosen because
it was a date when all the children could be present.

Entertaining the family, five sons and daughters with spouses
and eighteen grandchildren, was no small undertaking. They
made reservations for Victor and Louise at the Lima Holiday Inn
Motel so that they would not need to travel back and forth from
Germantown. Joanne's friend Kay Rood took part of the family in
her home. Dr. Bill and his beautiful blond children were housed in
a room next door where he could rest more easily, for he had been
busy with surgery and was very tired. Bill's wife, Sara, was ill with
malaria and could not come. The Hoshikos were in the Birch
library, sleeping on what must have been the most uncomfortable
sofa bed in the world; yet they and their children were as gracious
as if it were a royal suite. Other friends, Marty and Joe Hughes, had
brought their camper to the Birches' big yard and placed it under a
big apple tree for Tom and Elinor and their two children.

How were they to feed the big crowd on that Saturday night?
Joanne bought a huge turkey, an enormous ham, and the biggest
roast of beef she had ever cooked. Still she felt overwhelmed, but it
seemed the whole world came to help without being asked.
Neighbors brought dishes, silver, and Indian tablecloths and made
cakes and pies. Marty Hughes sent an enormous crystal punch
bowl filled with fruited Jell-o. "In India they never get Jell-o. I
know they'll love it!" She also sent two bakery sheets with straw¬
berry shortcake looking as if it had come from the finest patisserie,
each square topped with a strawberry seemingly as big as one's
fist. Jeannette Fromtling sent a huge bowl of her special pepper
hash.

Saturday came, cloudy and threatening rain. Joanne tried to act
calm, intrepid. If it rained, they could never feed fifty-four people
in their small house. All day it spittered and spattered, typical
humid August weather. The family and friends assembled, all
delighted at being together. Every so often a hymn would break out
spontaneously. Everything was perfect, except the gray sky.
Raleigh put the truck on the tractor, loaded on the picnic tables,
and set them up on the grass by the duck pond. Many hands took
down the cloths, dishes, and pottery in brown and blue and white.
No paper plates, Joanne had insisted. The food was all in readiness
on the porch.

Dinner would be at five, Joanne had announced firmly. Five
came. Bill could not be found. Someone went to find him. He was

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

235

in his room, sound asleep. Victor also was missing, but that
was to be expected. He was rarely punctual. But by twenty-five
past five all were present, and down there by the pond with the
ducks looking on they made the largest friendship circle Joanne
had ever seen. To add to the glory of the experience, the sun came
out.

Joanne had set her heart on securing a complimentary letter from
the president for the Rambos. She was told to write to his adviser.
General Haig. He had acknowledged her letter, and she started
waiting. Friday and Saturday brought nothing. Came Sunday
morning. "Mother," called her young son, "there's something
funny coming up the drive." She ran out. There was a curious
conveyance with three wheels. A mailman in mufti got out. "I have
something here for you, Mrs. Birch." Joanne gasped. She looked at
the very stiff and heavy envelope in her hands. "To Mr. and Mrs.
Raleigh Birch, for the Rambos," she read. Opening it, she received
one of the thrills of her life. It was a beautiful tribute. She sat down
and wept, then went to the telephone and called Marty. They
almost had a quarrel, for her friend was no admirer of Mr. Nixon.
But, after all, who wouldn't like to get a letter from the president of
the United States, protested Joanne, whoever he was? The congre¬
gation thought so when it was presented and read that afternoon,
and they gave a standing ovation, their own tribute and agreement
with the sentiments expressed:

"The fiftieth anniversary of your medical work in India and half a
century of married life make this a special occasion for your admir¬
ers, beneficiaries, and friends. There is no measure for the good
that you have done in alleviating human suffering and fostering
goodwill for your church and for our country through your brilliant
career. Nor is there a fitting reward for the love and selfless dedica¬
tion you have poured into each day's work."

The service and reception were perfect. The church was a "sea"
of gold. The walls were festooned with ribbons of gold gift¬
wrapping paper, "forty miles of it," Joanne insisted. Victor and
Louise sat on the elders' bench facing the congregation, he wearing
a gold tie, she a gold stole and beautiful gold corsage. All the family
were given gold rosettes. There were banners; one represented the
tree of life, and each branch one of the Rambo children. There were
blown-up pictures of the Rambos at different stages of their lives.
Posters urged in giant letters: "Make a Joyful Noise," "You Gotta
Have Heart," "Serve the Lord with Gladness," "Be Ye Doers of the
Word," and so on.

The minister, Pastor Ralph Price, gave the welcome to the start
the program. There were talks on "Something Old" and "Some-

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APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Victor and Louise at the church reception given them in honor of their
fiftieth zvedding anniversary.

thing New," a presentation, hymns, and prayers. Birch spoke,
representing the children, giving their tribute to both parents.
"Mother," he said, "knew every word in the dictionary." At Bar¬
bara's suggestion Raleigh sang "The Impossible Dream," a fitting
tribute to one who had always been an "impossible dreamer."
Harry Tiedeck, who through the years had helped make some of
those dreams come true, gave the benediction. At the reception
following, the church women served a huge cake, gold with
orange highlights, decorated with two birds with little glass
prisms, made in India.

How could one describe in words the beauty, the emotion, and
the joyfulness of the whole experience? Spectacle? Celebration?
Festivity? Jubilee? English was inadequate. India could have
provided a better word. It was a real tamasha.

Victor, of course, used the occasion to educate all captive listen¬
ers in the needs of India's blind. Gathering some of the children
around him, he told them about his eye camps, mentioning the
waste he saw in all the implements of destruction in Vietnam. How
one of those helicopters, he exclaimed, would make movement for
him and his teams so much faster! His audience was intrigued. A
helicopter? Why not? Marty's and Joe's children went back to their

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

237

Catholic church and begged their priest to help them raise money
so Dr. Rambo could have his helicopter.

“For dear Lord's sake," was Louise's reaction, “don't get him a
helicopter!"

A book—a tome—was presented to Victor and Louise contain¬
ing hundreds of letters of tribute from their friends, children and
grandchildren. Many, like these, recalled incidents of the past:

William McElwee Miller (Bill): “Have no ram's horn. Would love
to sound two long blasts for double jubilee. What a joy it was to
welcome Vic to Teheran some years ago and to stand with him on
the sidewalk as he prayed for the driver of the taxi out of which he
had stepped! How we sympathized with him when he opened his
bag and found that a medicine bottle had burst open when the
plane reached high altitude and all in the bag had been baptized
with iodine!"

Elizabeth Martin: “Do you remember, Weezle, when we slept on
wedding cake and put in seven names, drawing one out each day
and you put Vic's name in the farthest corner of the envelope so
you'd be sure to draw him last and so he'd be the one? . . . You,
propped on your bed studying Spanish, falling asleep, then taking
a test and getting A. (Westy and I always slaved and came out with
a B.) They say we tried to teach you not to walk pigeon-toed so
you'd make the ideal May Queen. All this effort went to nought
when you went to India!"

James S. Gupton, minister in Georgia: “I remember an occasion
in Cincinnati at one of our international conventions. I was sitting
over on the right side of the auditorium and noticed somone
motioning to me from the hallway. I went out, and it was a person I
had never seen before. You. You asked me if I would go on the stage
with you and tie your hands while you made an appeal. I shall
never forget your asking people to untie your hands so you might
accomplish greater things for Christ."

Jenny and Otto, Wichita: “Our neighbors still laugh with me
about their curiosity as to who was the tall lean man practising
calisthenics in our back yard at 5:30 in the morning. I doubt if you
have any converts in that area!"

Carol Terry Talbot, Ramabai Mukti Mission: “Remember the day
at Kodai when a little boy sat in the big chair before you to have his
eyes examined, scared stiff? Suddenly you stopped your examina¬
tion and said, 'Be very quiet and listen.' We all listened as a bird
perched near the window sang a solo and you said, 'Wasn't that
nice of God to send you a bird to sing just now?' The boy nodded
and was no longer afraid. . . . Then when a visiting Indian Church

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of England padre felt he couldn't minister to the local Christians
without a robe, you put an operating robe on him and fed a crying
baby candy while he dedicated it. When there were no cups for the
communion service, you had us use the palms of our hands, and it
was the most blessed communion service of my life. . . . Then
there was that transforming experience on the hot plains as we
went miles out of our way to Vellore Hospital to examine the blind
eyes of two little sons of an Indian pastor. Heat was almost unbear¬
able, dust all over us, perspiration making rivulets down our
faces, arms, legs. We were thirsty and miserable. You were driving
with a towel over your hands, and suddenly you burst into song.
Til go where You want me to go, dear Lord. . . .!' The atmosphere
in the car changed. We were going over the hot plains for Him."

There were memories, too, in some of the family letters.

Bill: "I have so many vivid, pleasant memories of our family life
growing up in India—trips, expeditions, everyday living, working
around the hospitals, especially Mungeli, sound advice and in¬
struction in the faith."

Tom: "From the very beginning I remember how close you made
us feel—close to you and close to each other. First of all you treated
us as individuals and respected us. I cannot remember being
compared with the older kids. Some of my fondest memories are of
riding out with Dad to go hunting and of listening to Mother read
to me. Even in boarding school I never felt pushed aside. Another
thing which has greatly enriched our lives has been the concern
that we come in contact with greatness as much as possible. I can
remember resisting this violently, but now I am glad to be able to
say that I saw Althea Gibson play or that I heard Dwight Eisen¬
hower speak. And finally, thanks for your Christian faith, which
you did not force on us but which you lived. Your quiet examples
were supporting and strengthening but not pressuring. My trust in
God, as it has developed, has been my own."

Even the grandchildren had their memories.

"Dear Grandfather and Grandmother, I am happy that you met
each other and that you are my grandparents. One of the things
that I remember about you is your jokes. I am happy to tell all my
friends that you are missionaries in India and that grandfather is an
eye doctor. But most of all I am happy to know you. Love,
Katherine."

Stephen Walters: "I am fine. I remembered that you do exercises,
so Mom and I do some also."

Victor also during this year of looking backward expressed in a
letter to all these friends some of his own memories.

"Strangely perhaps there stands out bright and sharply outlined

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

239

a host of 'little moments'—a boyhood adventure, my first seeing
the young lady who was to become my partner on this journey, our
babies as each entered the world, sicknesses, struggles, gradua¬
tions, marriages, and the whole web of little experiences that I now
see woven together as the fabric, the tapestry, of my life on earth.

"There have been in unspeakably glorious ways many flashes of
joy, of spiritual rapture, when unexpectedly I suddenly came close
in a 'soul-to-soul' oneness with a fellow pilgrim and in a flash we
saw each other as each a child of the same Father, we both belonged
to the same family that He created, our differences vanished and
our 'togetherness' scintillated for both of us in a holy experience of
intense, though unspoken love."

13

W hen Victor and Louise returned to India in October, they
knew that it must be their last year as missionaries on the
field. Victor was seventy-nine. Time was running out. Even a
human dynamo was considered old at eighty.

It was a year less of advancement than of careful and ordered
consolidation, even of retrenchment. The economic unrest sweep¬
ing the world had reached India. It affected the mobile teams as
well as other hospital employees. There was an increasing de¬
ficiency in devotion. Prayer sessions with the patients became less
earnest. The attainment of longer leaves seemed more important
than the accomplishment of duty. Still, there was progress. The
new Muktsar Eye Hospital thrived. Mr. Sohan Singh with pride
and enjoyment saw the results of his dream. Toward the end of the
year an applanation tonometer was added to its equipment. Other
instruments were sharpened in Switzerland, and new needles
were found for the corneal work.

More extended stations were functioning in Palampur and
Raison in the Kulu Valley, with new buildings planned. A large
staff went to Lahaul and Spiti, and many persons came out of the
high Himalayas for operations and glasses to be made in Raison.
Four new 900 Haag-Streit slit-lamp microscopes were obtained
and distributed to the most needy of the developing eye hospital
and stationary eye departments.

Victor exerted much of his energy that year in creating standards
for mobile eye hospitals, not only in India but throughout the
world. He did much writing.

"Do not be satisfied with cheap, unqualified surgeons or assis¬
tants, casual, high morbidity, unfollowed-up ophthalmology for
the villages, called in the past and even now, 'Camps.' The villager,
be he man or woman or child or baby, has an eye as precious as
your own.

"Let us hope to abandon the concept and even the name of

240

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

241

'camp/ From the coucher to the Smith operator and the one stitch
cataract operation, unequipped, hasty diagnosis, hurried opera¬
tion, inadequate post-operative care, no follow-up days—let them

g°-

"Adopt the concept Mobile Eye Hospital. With a slit-lamp mi¬
croscope, finest instruments, needles and suture material, finest
surgery with staff consisting of a well trained regular team of
nurses, technicians, optometrists, opticians and other supporting
staff. This is what you want and need.

"We of the society SIGHT FOR THE CURABLE BLIND have
proven that finest ophthalmology, modern and safe, can be taken
to the villages. The Mobile Eye Hospital is adequate to meet the
need of the eye problems of villagers anywhere in the world."

That year Arin Chatterjee and Victor produced a book. The
Curable Blind: A Guide for Establishing and Maintaining Mobile Eye
Hospitals, that was an exhaustive study of history, techniques,
personnel, equipment, surgical procedures, medicines, and health
care of patients. It was also profusely illustrated with pictures; in
short, it was a compendium of fifty years of experimentation,
practical experience, and untiring pursuit of a single goal. Dr.
Harlan Hungerford and his wife, Irene, had visited the Rambos in
Ludhiana in the spring of 1973, and Harlan, a retired professor
from the English department of Kent University, had done the
difficult work of putting together the preliminary draft of the book.
Later it was put into final form by a young journalist. Jack Shandle,
in Philadelphia.

The year—more than fifty years — came to an end. Victor and
Louise returned to America in the spring of 1974, and with the help
of the committee and other church friends they settled into a senior
citizens' housing development in Germantown, Four Freedoms
House. The effects sent from Mungeli and stored in the mission
headquarters included no furniture. "Everything they had," com¬
mented Joanne Birch, "would have fitted into a two by four box!"

One day she made a frantic telephone call to Raleigh from Van
Sciver's on the City Line Avenue in Bala Cynwyd, where she had
gone to help Victor and Louise pick out furniture. "Come, please
come! Help me! I'm getting a pounding headache. I don't know
what to do."

Arriving at the store, Raleigh found Joanne and Louise apprais¬
ing beds, but not Victor. After taking one look and hearing the
price, he would sit down in a convenient chair and moan, "But,
Louise, think of the eye surgery that could be done in India with all
that money!"

For perhaps the twelfth time Joanne would say patiently, "The

242

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Indians will take care of themselves, but, Victor, you need a place to
lay your head."

Finally Victor relented sufficiently to try out one bed after an¬
other. Whether from discomfort of price or of bed, none seemed to
suit. Remembering the story of the princess, Joanne thought, He
could feel a pea under those twenty mattresses! His bed must be long,
Victor maintained, and hard, very hard like a board. I believe he
wants to suffer, thought Joanne.

The clerk, to whom a little of the Rambos' story had been told,
was patient and helpful. "I can give you a firm and a soft," he said.

Louise sat down, reached into her purse, and took out a check¬
book. "We can afford something good, Victor," she said with
mildness but determination.

While she wrote out the check for living room, dining room, and
bedroom furniture costing a couple of thousand dollars, Victor sat
in the display chair, head in his hands, repeating, "Oh, but Louise,
we can't do this. It isn't right. All this money. You know it isn't
right. Think what it could do!" His voice, as usual, carried, and
people all around were observing the scene. He was genuinely
concerned. Joanne was almost in tears. Louise calmly finished
writing the check and gave it to the clerk.

"Please," Joanne said to the clerk, "get it delivered as fast as you
can because these people have been fifty years giving; now it's time
they were receiving."

It was over finally. They got Victor, still in shock, and Louise
outside and into their little Corvair. The roads were choked with
traffic, roaring and grinding in rhythm with the pounding in Jo¬
anne's head. As they drove up the driveway of the house in Rose
Tree Road where the Rambos were staying, a smiling woman came
out to meet them. "You probably want a cup of tea," she said.
"Come on in. And you, Victor, go lie down. You look worn out."
After tea, she put into Joanne's hands a big pan of fried chicken.
"Here, I know you haven't time to make dinner tonight, dear," she
said. There was understanding in her eyes.

The furniture was delivered in due time, and the Rambos moved
into their small but comfortable apartment. "To this day," Joanne
observed with amusement much later, "I doubt if Victor knows
whether he's sleeping on the hard bed or the soft!"

Retirement? For Victor? In his vocabulary the word was as am¬
biguous as "furlough." "Removal or withdrawal from service," the
dictionary defines it. The next four years were to be fully as vigor¬
ous as the last four.

The Rambo Committee was at a standstill, virtually disbanded. It
had completed its work of keeping Victor and Louise in India, and

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

243

now its members considered their responsibilities at an end. Victor
did not see things that way. In his view they were just beginning.
Opportunities were multiplying, not just in India but all over the
world. Never had there been so much need for recruiting doctors
and nurses, for training national workers, for raising money—
millions instead of mere thousands — to relieve the desperate
plight of the curable blind. Raleigh Birch, who was the mainstay of
what was left of the committee, found himself overwhelmed with
Victor's urgent appeals. He was getting calls at all hours, even
in the middle of the night. What was needed was an executive sec¬
retary.

At the suggestion of Pastor Dwight French, regional minister of
the Christian church in Pennsylvania, in October 1974 the Rambos
and Birches met with Dr. Arthur E. K. Brenner, who seemed an
ideal possibility. Dr. Brenner had been a chaplain as well as a
minister, had superintended an orphanage in Korea, conducted
foreign tours, and acted in many differing capacities. At present he
was partially retired. Here, certainly, was an answer to the commit¬
tee's need.

Would Dr. Brenner be interested? He might, yes, but he deferred
making a commitment until he had given the matter much thought
and prayer. In February 1975 he made his decision. He would come
with the Rambo Committee part-time for a few months while he
completed his obligations to his pastorate. At this point most of the
previous board of directors, many of whom had worked with
Victor for fifty years, resigned, saying that responsibility should
now fall on the shoulders of younger people under the leadership
of this new and active director. In July 1975 Dr. Brenner became the
full-time executive secretary of a rejuvenated Rambo Committee.

The emphasis that year was on the work in India and Zaire, but
horizons of opportunity were widening toward other countries.
The needs were limitless. Dr. Brenner was instrumental in devising
new educational media. In 1976 he persuaded a charitable trust to
contribute ten thousand dollars toward the production of a color
motion picture depicting the work in India. Using many sequences
of eye camps filmed by the photographers of M. D. International it
pictured dramatically all the phases of a mobile eye hospital from
the work of the "teller of good news" to the joyful giving of sight
with glasses. It showed Victor in action through the whole surgical
process, Birch telling of his work in Zaire, and Arin Chatterjee,
John Coapullai, and others of the fifty and more doctors, nurses,
and technicians whom Victor through the committee had helped to
train through the years. It presented the fact and challenge that a
blind person could be made to see for a cost of only twenty-five

244

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

dollars, the price of a single visit to an eye specialist in America.

"They come as helpless objects of pity," appealed Victor. "They
go as self-sufficient individuals, thankful that there are people
somewhere who care about them As they thank us some call us
'Marahaj!' 'Maharaj!' as if greeting a king. Yet we come not as
kings, but as servants of the King."

This film, titled To See Again, became the Rambo Committee's
finest medium of dramatic challenge. Twelve copies were soon in
circulation. Area representatives were recruited to spearhead the
work of the committee in various sections of the country and to
show the film.

If Dr. Brenner, Raleigh Birch, and others were the engineers
keeping the machinery well oiled and running smoothly—in fact
its designers and operators—Victor, although now well into his
eighties, was still a human dynamo, constantly attempting to
infuse it with igniting sparks. Yet in all human relationships his
utter commitment could be both stimulating and unsettling, and
occasionally a source of friction.

"His commitment is so intense, so absolute," observed one of his
devoted friends, a pastor, "that your own seems utterly puny by
comparison. At first his very presence becomes a judgment against
you. You begin to discredit your own activities and to become
resentful with him for creating your discontent. Of course the
discontent is our problem, not his.. . . His faith is always out in the
open. He may ask you to pray with him in a place and situation you
would never consider appropriate. Then you deal with the fact that
your own religion is held in such privacy compared with his. You
are forced to consider your reason for it that faith is a very personal
matter and to placard it is to desecrate it. Then self judgment can
start again.. . . His making us uncomfortable is probably a service.
The sobering reality is that all these qualities in him that generate
my discomfort are the very ones responsible for his astonishing
accomplishments. Thousands see because of this man's intensity,
single-mindedness and simple, direct faith. Praise be to God who
uses us all in his own way!"

Even Victor's children, much as they loved and welcomed his
presence, sometimes found his zeal disrupting. "When he comes
to our house," confessed Barbara, "he almost turns it upside
down. He has his plan and never comes without something
specific to do. He has something to say to everybody, phones
frequently, looking for new contacts, new ways of approaching
people with the challenge. He turns other people's schedules
inside out, and that's as it should be. It's his great strength, and I
love him for it, but it's not always so easy to live with."

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

245

Single-minded he was, yes, but he could expend the same zeal
and enthusiasm in activities as unrelated to his central purpose as
his love of jigging, and the same unswerving determination in
pursuing his objective. Very early one Saturday morning in March
he called Jennings Birch, Raleigh's son. "How would you like to go
with me to the Penn Relays?" he asked. Rousing himself from
sleep, Jennings agreed. Of course he would love to go. He picked
up Victor in a car, and they drove to the stadium. The waiting line
for tickets stretched for a block along the street. To Jennings's
surprise, Victor led them straight up the line to the ticket window.
With Jennings gaping in amazement, Victor talked to the ticket
seller.

"Remember me? I was here last year."

"Oh, yes—yes, of course. I remember you."

There were no good tickets left, but such as they were, Victor
bought a couple. They entered the gate to find their seats, and,
sure enough, they were not good, far in the back where binoculars
were needed to see the action. Victor spotted another acquaint¬
ance. It happened to be one of the ushers. "Look at these tickets we
have," he said. "They're really pretty poor. You know I'm an
alumnus here. Couldn't you find us something else?" After a short
time the friend managed to get them much better seats in a higher
price range.

"I never saw anybody enjoy a meet the way he did," Jennings
would remember. "He was always cheering, usually for the last
man, out of his seat and crying boisterously, 'Look at him go! Even
though he's out of the race, he's not giving up!'"

Nor did Victor, it seemed, when he really wanted something.

One of the things he wanted most during these more recent
years was to prevent the moving of Wills Eye Hospital and its
merging with Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. For a half
century he had seen this great, independent institution, founded
in 1832 by the Quaker James Wills, send skilled ophthalmologists
all over the world and develop ophthalmologic techniques that no
general hospital could ever attempt. He had sent his students there
for training, had used its facilities in a hundred ways. Victor de¬
plored the merger and fought it with every means at his command:
he made speeches and wrote letters to senators, congressmen,
heads of medical societies—even to the president of the United
States. Let the fine old institution, now certified as a historic
building, become an international eye hospital, he begged. Make it
a place in which ophthalmologists and ophthalmologic nurses
could be given the best possible training as well as the incentive to
go into all parts of the world where there was unmet need and, in

246

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

cooperation with the health departments of the various nations,
open the eyes of hundreds of thousands more of the curable blind.

"In Philadelphia there is an old and famous hospital, first in the
western hemisphere, which might be transformed into such a
training center, with outreach by jet helicopter to reach any curable
blind person within a matter of four days, anywhere.

"In what better way could the American people express their
concern for the welfare of a large number of their fellow men in
certain neglected parts of the world than by enabling in this way
many of the curable blind to see?"

In the midst of frustrations, there were personal rewards for his
long commitment and service.

Back in the early 1970s a good friend, Carolyn Weeder, a pupil of
the American sculptor Beatrice Fenton, had started to make a bust
of Victor. She had shown it to her teacher, who was not happy with
it. Beatrice Fenton had started the work again, with Victor giving
her several sittings. She executed it first in plastic clay. It was much
too sober to suit Victor.

"Can't you put a little pleasure into it? he asked.

She did. In the finished cast there was whimsy in the eyes, a
smile just beginning to curl the lips. The first molding went to the
University of Pennsylvania Medical School and was placed in the
Alumni Hall. The second was dedicated in October 1975 in an
impressive ceremony at Wichita State University, of which Fair-
mount College had become a part, to be placed eventually in a new
building planned to house the university's branch of the Univer¬
sity of Kansas School of Medicine. A plaque affixed to the pedestal,
Victor hoped, would challenge other students to follow in his
footsteps.

VICTOR CLOUGH RAMBO

Foreign missionary, ophthalmologist,
teacher, researcher

His great joy has been to tell of Jesus Christ and heal
thousands of blind, to inspire others to do so also, to tell the
world that most blindness is curable but uncured in India and
other developing countries, and to challenge you, whoever
you are, to do your part to give sight to some of the millions of
needlessly blind people

The following year in February, the portrait painted by Sobha
Singh was unveiled in the Pennsylvania hospital.

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

247

Honors these, both of them, yet for Victor disappointments. For
in the years that followed, not a single student approached him
with questions about how he could respond to the challenge.

Like most outstanding personalities, Victor was a complex mix¬
ture of strong traits, some in apparent contradiction to each other.
Take, for instance, humility and egotism. Constantly disclaiming
his own powers of achievement, giving all credit to the divine
Spirit working in him, nevertheless his very insistence of the
primacy of his one great concern was in itself a form of egotism. He
found it difficult to remain quiet in a group and listen to others who
might feel their concerns to be of equal importance.

"Dad always wants to be in the limelight," commented his son
Birch, "and I suppose this reveals our own lack of humility."

It was Louise who had quoted about him, only half jokingly, "I
think he would like to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse
at every funeral." Victor himself agreed that that was so. Some¬
times this urge found expression in action bordering on the ab¬
surd.

In the summer of 1975, the Raleigh Birches had a picnic in their
yard honoring Dr. Benjamin Chen, who was touring the country,
raising funds for the education of refugee children in Hong Kong.
The Rambos and many others were invited. As the guests were
seated around the pond listening to Dr. Chen tell his story, looking
at the pictures of his beautiful wife and children, Victor disap¬
peared. Then suddenly he came bounding down from the house,
galloping like a twelve-year-old, wearing a horrendous rubber
mask and cowboy hat that the Birches' son Robbie had left hanging
on his bedpost. Of course everybody laughed, greatly amused,
and the mood of serious conversation centered on the guest of
honor was broken—only momentarily, of course. Everybody ap¬
preciated the diversion.

Was his eagerness to make the acquaintance of distinguished
personages wholly prompted by a desire to enlist their support for
the work he considered of prime importance? When Queen
Elizabeth and Prince Philip came to Philadelphia in honor of the
Bicentennial in 1976 and Victor stood in the receiving line, certainly
the gold Kaiser-I-Hind medal he wore with pardonable pride gave
him an opportunity to tell them at some length of the needs of
India's blind, arousing their deep concern for this problem in a
remote part of the Commonwealth. Yet if the wearing of the
emblem was partly a bid for personal attention, it was the only
occasion in his life when he had ever worn it; and two years later he
was writing to the British embassy in Washington, deploring his

248

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

hoarding of two ounces of gold in the face of Britain's economic
crisis and offering to send it back as a contribution to the British
gold reserve.

Victor and Louise returned to India in 1976. An invitation to
attend the fiftieth anniversary of the Christian Medical Association
of India and the Rambo Committee's need for firsthand informa¬
tion about the projects made the trip a must. It was like the reliving
of a half century.

Flying to India on October 4, they spent four days in Delhi
attending the meetings of the association, with more than six
hundred medical, nursing, and paramedical professionals attend¬
ing. Victor had participated in the founding of the organization,
when its membership was largely missionary. Now, fifty years
later, most of its leadership consisted of highly trained Indian
doctors, nurses and administrators, all coming together in fellow¬
ship as followers of the Great Physician. Its program covered a
wide variety of areas, including the training of nurses and techni¬
cians and a new community health and family planning project.
The four days were another golden jubilee for Victor.

From there they went to Ambala, where Dr. Raj Sukhnandan,
son of Dayal, and his wife. Dr. Rosa, conducted a surgical program.
Victor helped dedicate a new Eye and ENT clinic given by the
Christoffel Blindenmission. For five days in Ludhiana they
enjoyed reunion with old friends, the Mookerjee family, Arin
Chatterjee, and Banarsi Dass. They made a quick trip to Andretta,
hoping to see Sobha Singh, but he had gone to Chamba, so they
could only leave a note for him.

At Palampur near Andretta, where so many eye camps had been
held, a young woman came to Victor, eyes alight through her
glasses. She was perhaps in her early twenties.

"You don't recognize me?" she asked.

"No, I'm afraid I don't."

"Nine years ago I was blind. As a child I had always been blind. I
came to you and you gave me sight. I went to school, finished
grade school, went on to high school. I had teacher's training. Now
I am teaching in a village school, here at Palampur, in the foothills.
You gave me new life."

On to Mungeli they went. The hospital there had no car, so Raj
Sukhnandan had arranged for one from his clinic to meet them at
the Bilaspur station. How often they had traveled those thirty-plus
miles and with what a variety of conveyances—bicycle, ox cart,
Josepha Franklin's Ford, the mission's carryall. Their old home.
Bungalow No. 2, was now a guest house; with their friend and

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

249

helper Phulbai as caretaker, it was like coming home. All else was
disappointing, however. Since the retirement and death of Dayal
Sukhnandan, the work had deteriorated. Eye work had become
almost nonexistent. This was the nadir of their journey into the
past.

Yet these were the only discouraging days of their trip. At
Padhar they saw Victor Choudhrie acting as chief surgeon in a
hospital supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Mission. At Vel¬
lore Victor and Anna Thomas, his former student, now head of the
eye department, broke ground for a new eye hospital to replace old
Schell. And perhaps the high point of their trip was a visit to John
Coapullai's hospital at Sompeta.

They almost missed this crowning satisfaction of their journey.
At first it seemed impossible to get space on the Howrah mail to
travel to this far northeastern corner of Andhra Pradesh on the Bay
of Bengal. Then the American consul in Madras, Kenneth Scott, Jr.,
son of Dr. K. M. Scott who had been director at Ludhiana for ten
years, secured the reservations. John and his doctor wife met them
in Vizianagram and drove them to a mobile eye hospital at
Shreeramnagar, sponsored by the local Lions Club. Victor saw
beautiful arrangements, splendid cooperation, and excellent sur¬
gery. A total of 224 cataract operations had been done and the
patients were about to be discharged, all perfect, with no complica¬
tions. The Lions Club was enthusiastic about the skill and spirit of
the Coapullais and their team and planned for a repeat perform¬
ance in the spring. Never had Victor seen cleaner or more beautiful
surgery, 224 cases without a single flat chamber, any sort of delay in
healing, iris prolapse, or other difficulty. With the team the Rambos
drove the 100 miles to the base hospital at Sompeta.

Here at the Arogyavaram Hospital Victor saw some of the finest
fruition of his teaching labor. Had his fifty years of service resulted
only in the work of this skilled and dedicated doctor, they would
have been worthwhile. And this was the man whose hands, awk¬
ward and improperly balanced, Victor had once held, guiding
them through the first operations. Dr. John and his wife, Ammu,
had come to Sompeta in the 1950s with their twin sons, Prem,
meaning "love," and Shanth, meaning "peace." The hospital,
founded and supported by the Canadian Baptist Foreign Mission
Board, grew rapidly after his coming. Because of his skills in
ophthalmologic surgery, it had become a specialized eye hospital,
and the Canadian mission supporting it had merged into Opera¬
tion Eyesight Universal. John had taken graduate training in
Europe; Ammu, after raising the twins, had gone to Vellore for
training in ophthalmology. Together they had become a team that

250

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

Victor called "incredibly beautiful." Eye camps had been started in
1964, hundreds, sometimes thousands of patients coming to a
single camp. In their years together John and Ammu had done one
hundred thousand eye operations, 99 percent of them for cataract.

In Delhi again, they visited with Dr. Mary Mathew, professor
and head of the eye department of the Lady Hardinge Medical
College and Hospital, who had also been a student of Victor's at
Ludhiana. Her team had recently done three eye camps in the Kulu
Valley, and she was now conducting one on the outskirts of Delhi.
The Rambos flew back to America on November 9, after a little
more than a month of travel. A month had been such a short time
for the reliving of fifty years.

Retirement? Hardly. During these five years Victor had merely
transferred most of his constant activity from one country to
another. He traveled almost incessantly, speaking, attending
conferences, and collecting for the Rambo Committee contribu¬
tions not only of money but also of glasses and fine optical instru¬
ments.

One day in June 1976, he traveled to Pittsburgh to visit another
ophthalmologist who was retiring. They had met many years ago.
Now he was closing his practice and donating his instruments to
Victor for shipping overseas.

"Want to help me?" Victor phoned his friend Dwight French, the
regional minister for the Christian church in Pennsylvania. Later in
the day French went with Victor to help him pack the instruments
for shipment. He found being with the two aging doctors an
unusual experience. Each instrument was treated with the utmost
care as it was opened and described. The Pittsburgh doctor ex¬
plained what it was for, where he had obtained it, and in some
instances the special procedures he had developed for its use. For
more than an hour Mr. French watched w T ith fascination as the two
men discussed their long years of experience. Listening, he
thought about what precise skill and care had characterized their
active years and how many thousands of persons had had their
sight saved or restored by their efforts.

When the packing was finished and the instruments had been
placed in the minister's car, Victor led the three of them in a prayer
of thanks for the instruments, the doctor who had donated them,
and the doctors who would be using them. The next morning Mr.
French received another call from Victor. A business man had
heard about Victor's being in town and why, and he had offered the
use of his private plane to take the instruments back to Philadel¬
phia. It was waiting for him at the airport. Would Dwight drive

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

251

Victor there? Of course. The ride was exciting. Victor was oven
joyed at all that had happened and the way God had blessed his
efforts.

There were many such "wondhaps" during these years. Because
of increased income, the Rambo Committee was able in 1977 to
assume support of a new worker. Dr. Ezekiel Abanishe, who was
building a new center called the Good Samaritan Hospital in
Nigeria. Having declined a good position in a Pennsylvania hospi¬
tal, he was remaining true to his original plan to minister to his
people and witness to his faith. The hospital would include a
Rambo Eye Clinic. Several ophthalmologists and other doctors
were agreeing to spend two months of service at this new hospital.
Complete eye clinic equipment was shipped. A year later the new
hospital was reporting a staff of thirty, one hundred fifty patients
daily at three locations, and not one fatality in the year.

Another shipment of delicate instruments was sent to an eye
surgeon, Dr. Martha Snearly, for a Baptist clinic at Koumra, Chad.

In Zaire, Dr. Birch Rambo and his associate ophthalmologist.
Dr. Shannon, were treating hundreds of patients each week. Dr.
Shannon was the only eye doctor for an area of five million people.
In 1978 the income of the committee, including donations of medi¬
cal equipment, pharmaceuticals, and glasses, had risen substan¬
tially. The directors, under Dr. Brenner's leadership, were actively
participating in the program.

In India there were hospitals in Ludhiana, Vellore, Mungeli, and
Sompeta; in Africa they were in Nigeria, Zaire, and Chad. Yet there
were still eighteen million blind persons in Asia and Africa, 75
percent of whom were curable. It was not hundreds of thousands
of dollars but millions that were needed.

An impossible dream, perhaps, but Victor was constantly in
pursuit of it. The year 1977 was one of comings and goings, when
he spent three weeks in Europe, attending the annual ophthal-
mological congress in Oxford, then visiting eye hospitals and
friends in England, Scotland, Holland, Germany, and Switzer¬
land.

As usual on such trips, Victor not only enjoyed fellowship with
old friends in the professional field but also established bonds of
mutual interest in many chance encounters. It was in London that
he traveled from the underground in Piccadilly to Heathrow
Chapel with an Indian taxi driver.

"Your name, brother?" he inquired.

"Ravinder Singh Gareha," was the response.

"I, too, am from India," Victor told him. "I was an eye doctor at
the Christian Medical College and Hospital in Ludhiana."

252

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

The man's eyes opened wide. "I was there!" he exclaimed, face
beaming. "I had a bad motorcycle accident, and a doctor sewed up
my forehead all around the eye. It was in the eye department. Was
it you?"

"It could have been, brother. God be praised!" He took the man's
address in Hounslow, London, and, of course, prayed with him.

Victor was at Oxford when news came of a "going" that took all
the color and spirit of adventure out of his journey, the sudden
death of Alice, Helen's and Wesley's only daughter. A first-year
medical student, she had been at home for the holiday weekend in
Marissa when a heart defect, not previously apparent, had taken
her in her sleep. She had been training in medicine to go to Zaire to
help Birch in his work. It was the second family tragedy. Four years
before, her brother Victor, his grandfather's namesake, had died
suddenly of the same cause.

Unable to return for the funeral, Victor phoned directly from
Oxford. Birch and Peggy received the news as they were leaving
Geneva for Zaire, and they were able to phone Marissa on their
arrival in Kinshasa. So the family was bound together in its sorrow
in spite of geographical separation.

"We thank God for Alice's twenty-two years," Victor and Louise
were able to write in their annual letter, "for her happily dedicated
life. We thank Him, too, for so gently transporting her into the
unimaginable beauty and joy of heaven for which this world is just
the preliminary."

If only I could have gone instead! thought Victor.

In June 1978 both Victor and Louise were in Florida, attending a
Christian ophthalmological meeting at Key Biscayne, where Victor
was an evening speaker. In July he was again in England, attending
the Oxford Assembly of the International Agency for the Preven¬
tion of Blindness. September saw him at the meeting of the Ameri¬
can College of Surgeons in San Francisco and at the American
Academy of Ophthalmology in Kansas City. But these were merely
the broad strokes of the brush, highlighting the finer details of his
goings and comings; Louise, who usually stayed at home, pa¬
tiently and skillfully drew their design. The area directors, like Dr.
James Henderson, soon found that it was better to make ar¬
rangements through Louise.

"People in North Carolina," Dr. Henderson wrote her one
March, "are becoming excited about the work that you and Dr.
Rambo began in India. We have shown the film or slides twelve
times since January 1. I believe your visit will give us the needed
boost to really get people involved in our work. Have we made too
many appointments for you? What about Saturday, May 22?

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

253

Would you need to rest this day or to share with some church?"
Yes, rest, replied Louise. If she had not protected Victor, he would
have filled every hour of every day with a meeting, a visit to a
hospital, an interview with some influential party, or a personal
visit of some other kind.

As it was, he did fill almost every hour of every day with some
kind of visit. He was equally concerned with every person he met,
no matter when or where, and could pray as easily and earnestly
on the streets of Philadelphia as he could on the dusty paths of
India. Every friend or stranger he encountered, sat beside, wrote
to, or called on the telpehone became an opportunity for Christian
concern and witness. Even someone's phoning him by accident
was turned to advantage.

"Hello. I am Dr. Rambo."

A child's voice. "Is Suzie there?"

"No, I am Dr. Rambo, a missionary for Jesus for many years in
India. Do you know about Jesus?"

"Yes, I know about Jesus."

"So we can praise Jesus together?"

"Yes, sure we can."

After a little prayer, "Try to learn more about Jesus and be more
like Him."

"OK. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

Sometimes it was Victor who dialed the wrong number.

"Is thisT. J.?"

"No, it isn't. You have the wrong number." The voice was cross
and rasping.

"So sorry, sir. Please forgive me."

"Forgive you? My wife is ill." Bang went the receiver.

Victor looked at his number once more. He dialed again, made
the same mistake, and the same gruff voice was back. "What do
you mean, dialing me again. I really do have a sick wife, and you
trouble me with two wrong number calls!"

"May I pray for healing for your wife and relief of her discom¬
fort?" Without waiting for a reply, Victor proceeded: "Lord God, I
pray in Jesus' name for the healing of this woman who is ill. I pray
that there may be healing and blessing. Lord."

He heard the other voice calling, "Darling, a man called here, the
wrong number, and he prayed for you to get well in Jesus's name."
The voice was no longer gruff but full of wonderment, calm and
relieved.

Victor heard the receiver placed quietly down. "Thank You,
God," he said, "for giving me the wrong number."

254

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

For many years, people had been telling Victor that a book
should be written about his life and work. Victor had definite ideas
about what such a book should or should not be. "A book that just
leaves me shining and the curable blind just sitting there uncured
and the reader Thrilled' with my devotion and not stimulated to do
anything, to give anything! No! How awful!"

Complicated, he is indeed. Anyone trying to describe Victor
Rambo is like the blind man attempting by the touch of one distinc¬
tive feature to describe an elephant. How does one depict fairly all
the many facets of such a contradictory personality—indeed, of
two personalities so diverse yet complementary; for without
Louise, his "balance wheel," Victor might well have been a human
dynamo expending its vast energy without control, hence either
burning itself out prematurely or getting constantly in need of
repair.

Perhaps the tribute paid to both of them by Barbara in her
anniversary letter sums up Victor's and Louise's lives better than
any author possibly could:

"I thank God for you, Mother, and for your fantastic gift of
bringing order and care into new and sometimes chaotic circum¬
stances. The modern mobile generation is far behind you in learn¬
ing to adjust creatively to always changing circumstances and
times. Your prayerful love, your wise insights, your graciousness,
your regular letters, your demand for integrity in all things—all
these are the foundation stones of our family.

"I thank God for you. Dad. You are a priest—you make every
place holy and every contact an occasion of knowing God's pres¬
ence. You are a prophet—your intuitive insights have turned out
to be true so frequently that it is painful. You are an example to me
of what it means to do whatever needs to be done, whether an eye
opened or dishes washed, with passionate single-mindedness for
Christ, not with moroseness but with song and dance. You are also
a clown—bringing mirth, surprise, joy, turning 'No's' into 'Yes's,'
giving new possibilities. Also like the great classic clowns you
express the great sadness of life that at times comes to everyone.
Yet you turn that into joy in Christ. You are the picture of what it
means to live the triumphantly fulfilled life.

"I pray that you will go on doing just what you have been doing,
creating order in a world burdened with chaos, being a prophet
and a priest and a holy troubadour and jigging jester for the King,
ushering everyone you meet into His presence wherever they are
and introducing them to new possibilities in their lives."

A Note from
Dr. Rambo

L ooking back from the midpoint of my ninth decade, I am grate-
j ful that God has permitted and enabled me to serve Him in
the restoring of sight to the curable blind of India. I am grateful for
the joy I have had through the years in this service and in the
working with many—friends, colleagues, and teammates. It has
always been a team effort, including many in America who have
helped through their prayers and gifts, as well as ophthalmologists
who came as volunteers to our clinics and mobile eye hospitals.
Those volunteers gave generously of their time and skill and, we
believe, found the experience of ophthalmologic service in India
worthwhile.

At this time I am deeply concerned that the work of restoring
sight for the needy blind of the world shall continue. There are
millions who could see again if we reached them with the God-
given science of ophthalmology. Years ago many young people
were alerted to the need for missionaries and challenged to serve
by the pledge of the Student Volunteer Movement. Today the same
challenge is presented to students of other, similar, groups—to
accept fully the call to carry the gospel of Christ "into all the
world."

The need is as great as ever, and opportunities are wide open.
There are jobs for all. I am particularly interested in the call for
ophthalmologists, ophthalmologic nurses and technicians, and
opticians to serve in Christian eye hospitals and mobile units.

God still calls men and women to service that may be difficult,
even dangerous, but a service that brings the spiritual reward of
joy beyond anything the secular world can offer. "I tell you the
truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of
mine, you did for me" (Matt.25:40, NIV).

For more information about opportunities for ophthalmologic
missionary service, contact the Rambo Committee, Inc.: Box 4288,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19144.

Victor C Rambo

%

DOROTHY CLARKE WILSON, the daugh-
ter of a Baptist preacher and wife of a Methodist
minister, has authored 12 biographies, 6 novels,
70 religious plays and 2 juveniles to date! Among
her bestselling biographies have been Ten Fin¬
gers of God . Dr. Ida . Granny Brand and Lone
Woman . Her novels include Prince of Eqypt,
which was used as resource material for the film
"The Ten Commandments."

Mrs. Wilson's books have also been published in
Europe. Scandinavia and Asia. As a result of 4
trips to India and others to Palestine. Egypt and
England, she has given almost 900 illustrated
lectures to various groups telling the story of her
books. When she is not traveling the world to
research a story, Mrs. Wilson lives in Orono.
Maine.

JACKET DESIGN: DOMINICK CIRRI

ISBN 0-915684-54-3
LC 79-55678

CHRISTIAN HERALD BOOKS
40 Overlook Drive
Chappaqua. New York 10514

Pnnted in USA.

Books-Histojy/Pol

APOSTLE OF SIGHT

The story of Victor Rambo,
surgeon to India’s blind

o A book for anyone interested in the problems
and rewards of missionary life.

o A book for anyone who wants to gain insight
into the land and the people of India.

o A book that is thrilling, true history —
inspirational and thoroughly enjoyable.

A main selection of Family Bookshelf book club

“Readers will follow the
career of Dr. Rambo with
admiration, sometimes
amazement, always with
reverence. Recommended
for mature readers as a
i inspirational volume."

— Gladys Taber, author
of the Stillmeadow series;
former Editor of
Ladies Home Journal

^ CO

Victor Rambo, M.D.

$1.99

DOROTHY CLARKE WILSON